DETROIT -- Such is the movement of Davis Martin's kick changeup, diving toward the dirt at low-90s velocity, that in just his second start of using his new pitch last year, White Sox coaches could spy Aaron Judge in the on-deck circle miming out how to scoop the offering with an exaggerated uppercut.
That's a swing plane which becomes vulnerable to a riding heater up in the zone, but like most things in our beautiful sport, that's easier said than done. First, riding four-seamers is not the strength of Martin's profile. Second, he was working from behind in the count too often in the early going to quickly move into such a mid-outing adjustment.
And third and mostly importantly, by the time the Tigers were done ambushing soft stuff out of Martin's hand, they were up 7-1, had launched two homers and five extra-base hits off the Sox starter in the first three innings, and only Andrew Benintendi slamming into the left field wall to track down Jake Rogers swatting a changeup kept it from being six.
"Got to make a little bit of a call there mid game to switch up the game plan," said Korey Lee. "Good team over there. Good lineup. They do their homework just like we do. It’s a plus-plus pitch, everyone should know about the changeup."
"You are not going to abandon them, you are just going to adjust slightly," Martin said of his off-speed arsenal. "They were jumping on offspeed early and often. As we went on, we started switching it to more of a fastball heavy approach, moving the sinker around, following it up with four seams, doubling it up with four seams. So, just seeing that earlier the better."
Blessed with plenty of chase-inducing secondaries and suspect command, plate discipline has always been necessary against Tigers starter Reese Olson, and thus he's traditionally fared well against Sox hitters. This new group had the approach to trouble Olson, putting 10 runners on over his six innings, but not the thunder to land more than glancing blows.
A Luis Robert Jr. walk followed by a Benintendi single and a laced Andrew Vaughn double put the White Sox up early in the first, but a crooked number eluded them as the inning tilted toward the Nick Maton and Lenyn Sosa middle portion of the order. Olson recorded just a single 1-2-3 inning on the day, but had the help of Brooks Baldwin getting picked off first to escape a two-on, two-out jam in the fourth, and got Robert to rap into a run-scoring double play with the bases loaded and no one out in the fifth.
""That play can't happen," Will Venable said of Baldwin getting picked off. "He knows that. We're trying to mount a comeback there and he just was a step too far off and wasn't able to redirect in time. Good learning experience for him but we have to be better than that."
Martin pulled a John Danks (providing length despite getting nuked early) to complete five innings, giving some meaning to the scoring opportunities the Sox were able to generate late. But they fared 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, and are 9-for-50 in those situations on the season.
Bullet points:
*Nick Maton is a good fastball hitter and a former Tiger. His former club threw him zero fastballs in four plate appearances, holding him to a 1-for-4 day with a single but also two strikeouts with runners on.
*Vaughn firing home on a Trey Sweeney slow chopper with the bases loaded in the third, right into the waiting mitt of Lee, who was four steps out in front of home plate as another run scored without a play, had a real 2024 feeling.
"My read on it was obviously different than Vaughny," Lee said. "We talked about it. My thought is getting an out in that situation, trying to stack up as many outs as we can and they took advantage of it. They were running hard and just miscommunication."
*Baldwin getting back-picked off first by Rogers to end the fourth was another. He also double-clutched and then threw through on a Justyn-Henry Malloy sacrifice fly that allowed all runners to advance in the third, so it's an eight-game sample of Baldwin having bat-first production.
*Carpenter has actually only hit five home runs in 21 career games against the White Sox. But three of them coming in the past two days makes it feel like a little more. Martin starting their second encounter with a curve in the zone was not the surprise it was intended to be.
*Lee doubled and singled twice for his fifth career three-hit game. As far as performances from PAC-12 alums go, Spencer Torkelson going 2-for-4 with a homer and a double took the limelight.
