Sam Antonacci is working on solving left-handed pitching, even while getting platooned

Luisangel Acuña made his first career start in left field on Thursday night. It's because he's right-handed, after all, so when Red Sox left-handed starter Ranger Suarez only lasted three innings, so did Acuña before being replaced by Sam Antonacci, who still managed to have a three-hit night.

But with southpaws Parker Messick and Joey Cantillo scheduled to throw this weekend for the Guardians, it's an alignment that could pop up again quite soon.

Antonacci has quickly become a regular atop the White Sox lineup against right-handed starters, hitting .297/.386/.456 against opposite-handed pitchers overall. While the willingness to get on base by any means necessary made him immediately viable, the midseason installation of Antonacci's power -- he's hit all seven of his over-the-fence home runs since June 14 -- is probably what makes it surprising to see him sitting for Acuña in any form.

But maybe those two developments can wind up being a little related.

When Antonacci homered off an up-and-in Emmett Sheehan fastball against the on June 14, the Dodgers' consistently candid rookie catcher Dalton Rushing gave a fittingly candid answer.

"Kind of pitch around what the hitter is good at. Like I said, I thought we did a fine job with that. Their leadoff guy jumped on a pitch that he historically isn't great against. But he put a good swing on the ball and sadly it didn't go our way."

Since then, all of the home runs Antonacci has hit have been off fastballs that are some variety of up and/or in. They've also all come against right-handed pitching.

Antonacci tries to downplay how much of a conscious adjustment he's made to cover this quadrant against velocity, because he's trying to downplay it to himself. He feels he's spent part of the season "cheating towards the the middle-in ball," which in turn, has made it tough to stay on left-handed breaking balls located away from him.

As a result, Antonacci is hitting .206/.290/.235 against lefties in 77 plate appearances this year, which are the sort of results that are getting him platooned. While he says he maintains a pretty even lefty/righty split in his practice reps on the Trajekt machine, nothing can fully replicate the game reps he's only sparingly getting.

"I feel like once I continue to just get more ABs off them and learn where my sweet spots are against them and how it it differs from the righties, I think I'll be in a good spot," Antonacci said. "[Hitting well against both sides is] the goal, obviously. I would say right now when you have those good right-handed bats, if they're on the bench, I would want to pinch-hit them, too, because they can bring a spark plug. But I always want to hit. But if they're bringing in those guys, I have all the confidence in the world with them, and they're able to pick me up."

There are short-term and long-term measures Antonacci is taking to combat the issues against same-handed pitching. The most immediate day-to-day measure is him aiming to serve outer-half pitches from lefties to the opposite field, which makes him a more competitive at-bat than when he felt he was trying to pull everything, but limits him to mostly being a singles hitter when two doubles in 77 PA is already all the thump he's shown against southpaws. The more structural adjustment is Antonacci switching to a torpedo bat against left-handers to make his swing more concise, and reduce his temptation to speed up his process to fend off inner-half velocity.

Antonacci finds himself recognizing more chase pitches out of the hand and taking them when he's not rushing, but there's always a give-and-take.

"It's been a few times that I've seen spin and hit it on closer toward the end, and I've been like, man, 'If I was using my regular bat, I'd have got that one,' but there's also been times where I've gotten jammed and I've hit it well, and 'I've been like, dang, if I was using my regular bat, it would've broke,'" Antonacci said. "There are a lot of sinker ballers, so we just thought it was more beneficial and it allows me to let the ball travel a little bit more too."

Ultimately the White Sox want to cultivate a balanced version of Antonacci's swing, because when his hands start drifting away from his head in his setup, possibly subconsciously to cheat to the outer half, they've noticed that the bat speed he's added this year starts to diminish. As that reel above demonstrates, the hand speed Antonacci can show when he keeps his swing radius tight is pretty remarkable and valuable.

"Sammy, man, what he was able to do last night to get to that pitch in that spot to keep it in the air, hit it out of the ballpark," hitting director Ryan Fuller said after his home run against the Yankees last Wednesday. "We haven't seen that. Usually, that's going to be a rollover or swing-and-miss."

For now, it looks like the White Sox will be finding that balance by deploying Acuña more against left-handers, against whom he's 15-for-38 with a walks and a pair of doubles since the beginning of June. It seems like a fairly temporary salve, but much of hitting throughout the season is trying to identify when things are drifting out of place, or when the league is adjusting, and riding a good thing for as long as it's around.

"You don't even see it sometimes until it's a big drift from the month of April to the month of July." Antonacci said. "There's something new every day that you've got to look at it, no matter how good your swing feels."