Jake

Sandlin's statcast metrics and repertoire look meaningfully different this season compared to last. Against righties, he's throwing about 40% 4-seam, 31% sweepers, 20% sinkers, and a curveball or cutter here and there. Last season against righties, the 4-seam was only 14%, the sweeper was 27%, a cutter was being used for 19% of pitches, 10% were a slider, and 30% was the sinker. He got a lot of whiffs on those non-sinker offerings to righties in 2025 but when there was contact he was hit really hard. Not quite so many whiffs this year, but the contact has been much weaker. Against lefties, leaning even harder on the 4-seam using it 48% of the time. The featured offspeeds are an 81mph curveball for 21% of pitches and a 91mph cutter for 17%. There's also a 91mph "sinker" used about 10% of pitches that I suspect is a kick change. Last season, he only threw the 4 seam 27% of the time to the lefties and really just had a kitchen sink approach: 26% cutter, 17% sweeper, 13% sinker, 10% slider, 7% curveball. None of it really worked in 2025. Lefties haven't really hit him at all in this short stint in 2026. Besides the difference in mix, the pitches don't seem the same. The curveball is slower and bigger. He's no longer throwing a slider. This year's cutter has more depth. This year's sweeper has a lot more drop with the same big sideways break. The 4-seam has a much lower spin rate and slightly less rise but has been a lot more effective. I suspect he was slightly cutting the 4-seamer last year which tends to create wasted spin. It's interesting to see all that change and the mostly-good results in AAA, but it also makes you think he might not have enough reps to be consistent with all this new stuff. Hope it all goes well.

You'd think he loaded the bases from reading this thread

Splitters are crazy

Surprised how our outfielders are positioned for Larnach

More likely than not Dominguez gets the save but there's no denying there's a sense that we're just delaying the inevitable in terms of him losing the closer job.

Nice job hanging in there

This is not the day to hit those high flies over there

Let's give Seranthony a bit more margin for error

FWIW, I think the scorer may have access to the catch probability estimate for the play. If Tristan made an extraordinary effort to get to the spot to make the catch, then it probably wouldn't make sense to charge the error on the drop.

Tristan Peters showing he is indeed human

Was thinking "Bryan Hudson already?" and then I remembered that sometimes starters come out later than the 5th inning

Benny goes down on first pitch changeup two straight ABs

Interesting throw from Peters

lol I think Rikuu is going to have a miss in the outfield before too long

Sox have had some good fortune in this game so far, I hope they keep it rolling

I find his public persona to be pretty annoying but it's no big deal. I got to interact with him briefly when I visited spring training and he seemed like a nice enough guy, certainly very much eager to carry on with the fans.

Nishida putting his arm up to keep Peters away on a ball hit directly to him lol

I'll be keeping an eye on the whiffs for Rikuu because the Ks jumped from "unbelievably low" to "just under league average" when he went from AA to AAA.

Romo stole the RBI from Rikuu so the only option now is to go back to back

Batted ball luck for my White Sox!

Can Rikuu hit a homer in his first game and then never again like he did in Charlotte?

Benny playing well means no defense, no running, crappy at bats, and an 87 wRC+ in the month that he is said to be playing well. He is arguably a MLB quality player but I don't like the fit on this team. He might have a little more production in him but I'd rather run the youths out there.

I'm ready for Benny to go

Leave Colson alone, Zebulon!

Crowd goes wild for Rikuu's first catch.