I'd forgotten that Liam Hendriks doesn't handle altitude well until he mentioned it during his media session following the White Sox's 2-1 victory over the Rockies Tuesday night. Granted, there isn't much of a reason to think about it since the White Sox so seldom play anywhere with a notable elevation, but once it came up in the questions and answers ...
“I've known I struggle with altitude for years now,” Hendriks said. “I think 2014 was the first time I went to [Triple-A] Colorado Springs and threw seven innings and in between each inning I was throwing up in the bathroom. Since then I've been medicated, and the medication’s interesting, because I lose feeling in some of my extremities, which is always a fun time.
... then I recalled him taking hits from canned oxygen during last year's All-Star Game around all the televised cursing.
Considering Hendriks has been hit hard over each of his three second-half outings, I'd hoped that he wasn't going to write off Ryan McMahon's inning-opening solo shot as a Coors creation, but he assuaged those particular fears by the end of the answer.
“It's something you deal with. You show up and do your job to the best of your abilities. It unfortunately coincided with me not having any sort of feel to be on the mound. Everything's been cutting a little bit, so I'm not quite going through the right kind of mechanical things that I've been used to. Trying to get back on kilter while dealing with altitude is always fun.”
Look it up on his Statcast page, and yup, his fastball has lost a couple inches of carry since the All-Star break. His velocity is also down a smidge, but it's within the band of his normal range since the elite form he discovered a couple of years ago. We saw him lose touch with the pitch at a couple of points last season, so there's no reason for overreaction.
My concern is that if the league is better at fighting off high fastballs than it used to be, then Hendriks might be a little more vulnerable when hitters get to see a worse version of the pitch they're going to the plate to beat. In this scenario, a measured reaction to such issues is warranted. Hendriks has responded by throwing fastballs barely half the time this month, his lowest rate since assuming this high-leverage version of himself in 2019, so his own response is measured, but detectable.
Spare Parts
The expanded postseason probably means fewer true sellers, but the starting pitching market is surprisingly rich. That's partially because some second-division teams have had the best available arms (Luis Castillo, Frankie Montas), but also because some teams might add to the pool due to organizational surpluses (Cleveland, Houston), or because, in Detroit's case, their first plans to build a contending rotation have fallen apart due to injuries and Eduardo Rodriguez's situation.
A lot of these hitters would add to the White Sox's general clog at first base/left field/DH, which is why David Peralta makes an increasing amount of sense to me as a fit on this team. Mike Petriello said Peralta wasn't originally going to be included on this list, but the big jump in his fly ball rate makes him more intriguing than what his long track record had previously suggested.
This is the time of the year where Carlos Rodón hit a wall with the White Sox last year. He's allowed five runs in each of his last two starts with the Giants, including a frustrating six innings against Arizona on Tuesday. It's unwise to try to separate it from mere regression (his ERA's still just 3.18), but it's worth watching to see how he handles the next few weeks to better judge the White Sox's reasoning for not issuing him the qualifying offer. It's not off to a great start.
Carlos Rodón furiously kicked a bat which hit Thairo Estrada in the leg 😳 pic.twitter.com/8XXIe2iJtG
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 27, 2022
Dylan Cease's leaps in consecutive seasons have propelled him to crack FanGraphs' list of players with the most trade value. The series has 20 spots to go, and I'm most curious to see if where Luis Robert ends up. He fell from 14th to 30th in last year's exercise due to the hip injury, but I'd guess that he's recaptured most of the value lost, even with the recent bout of lightheadedness.
Every time Jason Benetti gets a new assignment, it's worth wondering whether he'll be able to maintain full(ish)-time duties with the White Sox, especially since we just saw the Blackhawks lose Eddie Olczyk to Seattle due in part to differences in appreciating national and local priorities. A bigger, more entrenched role in Fox's college football ranks might actually make it easier to balance the two. Or maybe any real concern is unwarranted, because everything written about Benetti suggests he's impossible to overwork.
