Monday, August 20, 2018

Coming and Staying Away


Call it coincidence or call it kismet—on the same day Cubs’ starter Yu Darvish pulls himself early from a rehab start the White Sox announce the call-up of flame-throwing phenom—don’t you just love the language of baseball?—Micahel Kopech.  Insert jokes about checking all the boxes here.

Darvish is more of a nightmare than a joke to the North Siders.  Signed for six years at $126 million, the right-hander hasn’t pitched for his new team in three months.  Yesterday, he stopped after an inning of work at Class-A South Bend.  This is not what you would call a very good sign.  Darvish has been complaining about elbow pain for months now.  What doesn’t go away is a sign of significant damage, in my humble opinion. 

The moral of the story is, develop your own pitching and hang onto it.   That’s what the White Sox did with Chris Sale, at least for seven years until the whole house-of-cards approach to roster building came crashing down end after the 2016 season.  So, then we traded Sale to the Red Sox for minor-league talent including Yoan “Strike Three” Moncada and Kopech.  You could say we kind of developed those two.

Kopech, who starts Tuesday, will join a young staff that includes Lucas “Who, Me Worry?” Giolito and Carlos Rodon.  Meanwhile, the Cubs are left to wonder what went wrong with their winter acquisitions of Darvish and Tyler “Walk Man” Chatwood.  Kismet, I say again.   

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