Pregame Notes: The Thorpe is Nigh

The Red Sox are resting Tyler O’Neill and Rafael Devers with sore knees, Masataka Yoshida is still on a rehab assignment and Boston is also throwing a bullpen game on Sunday, giving the White Sox a rare chance to consider transitioning out of a 14-game losing streak into a series win.

But the hell with all that, there are prospect pitchers to think about!

-- Pedro Grifol announced that Drew Thorpe–the highest-rated pitching prospect that we can reasonably expect to debut this season–will in fact debut on Tuesday in Seattle. If you want to get technical about the slotting, he’s taking the rotation spot of Jake Woodford, who was designated for assignment after Thursday’s conflagration. The travels of Sammy Peralta have him filling out the bullpen to nine men for now, but it's easy to imagine him hitting the road again as the corresponding move for Thorpe in a couple of days.

"It gives us the opportunity to see a guy we think checks a ton of boxes to be able to pitch here and allows us to evaluate where he is in his development," said Pedro Grifol of Thorpe's call-up. "If by chance it identifies some of the things we have to continue to improve on, then you know, that’s why Nastrini is going down.

"[Nastrini]'s got some homework to do. All these guys are big big parts of the future. It kind of puts them in a position to compete here at the major leagues and it puts us an organization to be able to evaluate where these guys are right now."

Nastrini was optioned on Sunday morning after 18 walks and five home runs allowed in 16 ⅔ innings, over the course of his four starts during his second major league stint. His slider absolutely plays, his road to using the slider needs some patching.

-- After a three-inning save on Friday, Jonathan Cannon will slide back into the rotation on Wednesday, which is the closest approximation to Nastrini's spot. Everything is being re-jiggered both because of the new names inserted into the mix, and because the Sox are grabbing an extra day of rest for Garrett Crochet again by pushing him to Thursday.

At some point in all this, if health allows, Mike Clevinger is going to throw the bullpen that has alluded him for three days now, which would eventually lead to a rehab assignment.

-- Thorpe has been playing with his food all year at Birmingham (1.35 ERA, 35 hits allowed in 60 innings), an assignment to Charlotte is a mean thing to do to any pitcher, and the White Sox have signaled their willingness to promote from Double-A all summer. But our Jim Margalus did speak with Barons pitching coach John Ely on Sunday morning about Thorpe's readiness.

"He’s got the feel for it. He has a process. He knows what he’s doing behind everything that he does in his practice rest and his side reps. And then in game he applies it. You see the preparation lead up to the game, and then he executes it very well.

"He’s been ready. He’s been ready all year." [...]

"He could’ve gone up at any point in my mind … he can go up whenever. He’s doing everything that a major leaguer does well, and he’s applying it to the game. It’s almost too easy for him right now. Even on days where he doesn’t have his best stuff, he’s still finding a way to go seven scoreless, or seven and one run. It was really impressive."

-- Cannon's most recent Triple-A numbers didn't portend future greatness, but he spoke about a focus on commanding a glove side four-seamer to left-handers during his recent minor league stretch. And then he showed immediate proof of concept in his save on Friday. The Red Sox flooded the zone with lefties immediately upon Cannon entering the game, only to watch him strike out Rafael Devers, Jarren Duran, David Hamilton and Dominic Smith across three scoreless innings.

While his four-seamer gets up to 96 mph and Cannon said improving its command was all about getting reps in, since he spent most of spring focusing on getting his sinker right, getting his sinker right might have helped everything out in the end.

"With the sinker not throwing it as hard was more in spring training when I was tinkering with it," Cannon said. "It wasn't moving as much when I was throwing it hard. Now that I've repped it, I can throw it harder, closer with my four-seam. I throw it a lot at 94-95 mph and they were catching [the seams] and doing what they're supposed to do. Now that I've done that, I can throw it almost as hard as my four-seam."

And that, in turn, can allow Cannon to switch between the sinker and four-seam with less of a switch in intent and mentality between pitches.

"100 percent. Just throw it hard. I think anyone will tell you if you make a mistake with 95 mph, it's less likely to get hit than a mistake at 91 mph."

--Oh by the way, Bob Nightengale reported in the USA Today that the White Sox won't consider a managerial change until after this season. Well, that's all the time I have folks, enjoy the game!

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