Agony, Hold the Ecstasy

So far this young season, White Sox pitchers have walked in four runs, including two yesterday against Tampa Bay.  Carson Fulmer I expect to be wild, but not Carlos Rodon.

 

Ever since he was drafted third overall in 2014, Rodon has been touted as a future ace, but a 27-31 career record with a 3.99 ERA would hardly justify the hopes, projections and, possibly, the fantasies of GM Rick Hahn and the rest of the Sox front office.  Against the Rays, Rodon gave up 4 runs on 8 hits and five walks; he was lifted after 111 pitches, with two out in the fourth inning.  Those are not exactly ace numbers.

 

The Sox lost the game, 5-1, with the hitting about equal to the pitching.  Fourteen strikeouts, zero walks—too bad those are Sox batting, not pitching, stats on the afternoon.  I could note how the Sox had runners on the corners with no outs in the bottom of the sixth and the score 4-1, only for Rays’ starter Blake Snell to strike out Jose Abreu, Welington Castillo and Yoan Moncada in succession, but I won’t.  I’d rather talk about rookie Eloy Jimenez.

 

So far on the season, Jimenez is batting .257, going 9 for 35 with 2 RBIs.  Not Robin Ventura’s 0-for-41 to start off a career, but not exactly what fans were expecting, either.  By the way, all nine hits have been singles.  What is it about Sox talent that so often disappoints?

 

Could the front office be wrong in judging players, or coaches ill-equipped to teach skills on the major-league level?  I’d say it’s a little of both.  But for argument’s sake, blame the coaching.  Don Cooper has been the pitching coach since July of 2002.  Who’s he developed in all that time?  Not Mark Buehrle, who debuted in 2000.  Not Jon Garland, a good pitcher who could have been very good, or better, had Cooper been able to crack that Alfred E. Neuman persona of Garland’s.

 

Come to think of it, Rodon comes off just the same as Garland did.  The Sox either have to acquire pitchers with a different personality or get themselves a pitching coach capable of handling disparate personalities.  Who and what they got now ain’t working.  Ditto the hitting.

 

But the season’s young, and maybe I worry too much.  We’ll see.