Pregame Notes: Everybody’s getting an opener

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Davis Martin's supination leanings/platoon splits gave rise to the 2022 White Sox repeatedly using an opener for him, despite having a coaching staff less inclined to such a measure than this one.

So with Will Venable's staff and their recent hard pivot away from throwing their right-handers directly into the teeth of the left-handed power hitters at the top of the Athletics' lineup, Martin wasn't going to be excluded. Kick change or no kick change, Brandon Eisert is facing Lawrence Butler and Tyler Soderstrom the first time through.

"It’s something we did a lot in San Francisco," Brian Bannister said Sunday. "You see it used successfully like what the Tigers did last year in the second half after the [Jack] Flaherty trade. I think it does help set up the lineup in favor of the starting pitcher that follows, especially when there's a little thump. You're guaranteed to get their best hitters in the first inning.

Just giving an alternate look, an alternate hand could be really successful. We're at a point now, with the loss of Martín [Pérez] short term, our entire major league pitching staff is making $10 million. There's a lot of guys with less than a year of service time, so anything we can do to facilitate that adjustment to the major-league level and give them an edge just against these opposing lineups, can be very beneficial. What Tyler [Gilbert] was able to do and set up the starts that followed was really nice."

Just the nature of Eisert's natural lefty delivery produces some numbers you don't see very often. He strides so far out that he regularly registers as getting seven feet of extension from the pitching rubber, and his torso has dropped so far down by the time he releases the ball that his hand is barely over five feet off the ground.

The unique look is how Eisert is able to survive when 92 mph registers as a sign that he's got his best fastball on the day, and while he's more or less always thrown this way, he's shifted his placement on the rubber to further emphasize it.

"I used to stand on the third base side of the rubber and I moved to the first base side, and that created the angle of really throwing from that side," Eisert said. "I think it has helped a lot in creating those angles, throwing behind lefties and way away from righties. The angle coming in has been super helpful. I started doing that last year and it's helped a ton going into this year."

First pitch: White Sox at Athletics

TV: CHSN

Radio: ESPN 1000 AM

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