4 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

You didn't watch his first 3 starts against KC, Seattle and Cleveland then did you? He got rocked in all 3, and that was before Lindor was healthy for the Indians. 

I did. And I meant after his first three starts, sorry. 

Here’s Freddy Garcia’s 2005 game log.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=garcifr03&t=p&year=2005

By all metrics, Garcia had a great 2005 season - 14-8 record, 3.87 ERA, 4.06 FIP, 1.25 WHIP, 20 quality starts out of 33.

You’ll notice that in 7 of his starts, he got absolutely rocked - 5 ER or more. In a five of his of other starts he gave up 4 ER in 6 to 7 innings- pretty mediocre to bad numbers.

i suppose my point is that 7 times out of 33, in one of his “good years,” a year in fact that led us to a world title, solidly #2-3 starter, reliable Freddy Garcia went out and got himself rocked. 21% of the time. In another 5 starts, he was meh to bad. That brings the total of bad starts to 36%. Sometimes he was shelled by good teams and sometimes by bad teams.

this is kind of why I am more encouraged by Lopez’ 6 good to great starts than discouraged by his 5 bad ones. Yes, I know 6/11 is a lot worse than 70% but the growth is still happening.

Edited May 25, 20196 yr by Greg Hibbard

2 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

Here’s Freddy Garcia’s 2005 game log.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=garcifr03&t=p&year=2005

By all metrics, Garcia had a great 2005 season - 14-8 record, 3.87 ERA, 4.06 FIP, 1.25 WHIP, 20 quality starts out of 33.

You’ll notice that in 7 of his starts, he got absolutely rocked - 5 ER or more. In a five of his of other starts he gave up 4 ER in 6 to 7 innings- pretty mediocre to bad numbers.

i suppose my point is that 7 times out of 33, in one of his “good years,” a year in fact that led us to a world title, solidly #2-3 starter, reliable Freddy Garcia went out and got himself rocked. 21% of the time. In another 5 starts, he was meh to bad. That brings the total of bad starts to 36%. Sometimes he was shelled by good teams and sometimes by bad teams.

this is kind of why I am more encouraged by Lopez’ 6 good to great starts than discouraged by his 5 bad ones. Yes, I know 6/11 is a lot worse than 70% but the growth is still happening.

How much of ReyLo's good starts were him though? His good starts have ONLY come against one of the 5 worst offenses in the league, teams that will let him get away with mistake after mistake. 

On ‎4‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 11:10 PM, Chicago White Sox said:

The kid has looked fantastic so far this year IMO.  Has been a real bright spot for us.  I know the command hasn’t been perfect, but there’s no doubting the stuff or his ability to battle.

So what do people think we have in this kid?  Is pretty much everyone now convinced he can make it as a starter?  If so, what is his ceiling?  To me, if he can continue to improve the slider & curveball he has a chance at being a legit #2 starter.

Also, I haven’t seen it mentioned here anywhere, but apparently Lopez was battling a stomach bug today and it was it was affecting him a bit.  Got to give the kid props for five gutsy innings against a stacked lineup while under the weather.

I remain an optimist in 2019.  I thought Lopez exceeded expectations for 2018; any poor starts like last night were exceptions.  In 2019, they are more common and he has regressed.  At least he does not appear to be hurt (unlike Rodon, who was daily candidate for DL).  And there was that 14 strikeout performance earlier in month...

2 hours ago, gusguyman said:

How much of ReyLo's good starts were him though? His good starts have ONLY come against one of the 5 worst offenses in the league, teams that will let him get away with mistake after mistake. 

I dunno, do you apply the same logic to all Sox pitchers? Are Garland or Buehrles 2005 starts against bad teams not worth anything? Really great pitchers have made careers on feasting on poor offenses. I hope Reynaldo is one of those. 

19 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I honestly believe if the Astros or another competent organization got their hands on him he’d quickly turn into an effective #3 type starter. 

The Sox should hook him up with the guys from Driveline this offseason regardless of how the rest of his season plays out. 

On 5/25/2019 at 1:36 AM, Swingandalongonetoleft said:

Don't really have high hopes for Lopez. Fourth or Fifth starter is my guess at best case scenario. Hope I'm wrong. 

When the guys in front of you are Cease, Kopech & Giolito...you could be a pretty good pitcher and be a # 4 or 5 starter.

2 hours ago, poppysox said:

When the guys in front of you are Cease, Kopech & Giolito...you could be a pretty good pitcher and be a # 4 or 5 starter.

Right now, we just have to hope for a return to 2018 form and that alone would make him a quality #5 starter.  Not the ideal outcome for him, but it enough for us if we add a TOR starter to pair with the three guys you mentioned.

he needs to develop some secondary pitches that work.. that his biggest issue right now.

 

His fastball is good enough.

I just think he is a young guy who is inconsistent with command and confidence. The only bad game he has when he threw at least 60 strikes was vs. Boston. The question will be whether or not he figures it out. 

On 5/26/2019 at 10:55 AM, harkness99 said:

he needs to develop some secondary pitches that work.. that his biggest issue right now.

 

His fastball is good enough.

Absolutely. His change is inconsistent, I'd suggest he experiment with a splitter and a forkball, as well as returning to the cutter that was working so well for him last year. 

Edited May 30, 20196 yr by Jack Parkman

So is there anything that can be done with ReyLo to save his season or is this year a lost cause? 

I think you just keep working with him on command and control for the rest of 2019 and hope he can turn it around. What value would there be in giving his slot to anyone else when we can’t even get dudes like Banuelos and Covey out of our rotation?

12 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

So is there anything that can be done with ReyLo to save his season or is this year a lost cause? 

there us never a lost cause. he needs to continue to work on his secondary pitches but more importantly he needs to learn how to pitch without his best stuff and how to pitch out of trouble.

he can pitch very well when he has great stuff. its learning how to pitch with adversity that is important. that's why I dont necessarily disagree with the decision to keep him in yesterday.  it wasn't the best decision for winning the game but it was a good decision to see how Lopez would handle the situation  

they need to find out if he can be part of a competitive team rotation.

5 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

I think you just keep working with him on command and control for the rest of 2019 and hope he can turn it around. What value would there be in giving his slot to anyone else when we can’t even get dudes like Banuelos and Covey out of our rotation?

Exactly. Just keep throwing him out there. No one else worth really giving a shot to yet (enough room for Cease to come up already). 

Maybe he should get in contact with Giolito's high school pitching coach.

I've felt that his ultimate role will be a 4+ out reliever but at this point there is no one else to take the starts so he should keep getting chances. 

I think his stuff could play up in a RP role, but that is no guarantee. 

Keep running him out there until we have better options. That certainly won’t happen in 2019. If we can get 2018 Lopez, he’s perfectly serviceable as our 5 starter moving forward. He’s capable of more, and hopefully someday it’ll click to the point he can show some consistency. 

18 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

Keep running him out there until we have better options. That certainly won’t happen in 2019. If we can get 2018 Lopez, he’s perfectly serviceable as our 5 starter moving forward. He’s capable of more, and hopefully someday it’ll click to the point he can show some consistency. 

Yea that's the spirit.  At this point he looks like pitching depth which is OK.  If he's the 5th starter in 2021 forward that's not the worst thing in the world.  Sox needed to get one TOR starter from the Eaton deal and although it's not the one we expected they got one.  If Gio turns into a borderline ace solid / #2 and Lopez is an average 5th starter getting arb raises there are worse outcomes from that deal.

Lopez would also be helped by using an opener from time to time.  He seems to have about 15 batters or 4 innings where he's lively enough with the fastball to be effective.  Until he gets more comfie with his off speed stuff he can't face an order the third time through.

Edited May 30, 20196 yr by chitownsportsfan

In this day and age I do not believe in having our starters go 8-9 innings. Flirting  with disaster. 

Did anyone see if Ricky made any postgame comments to any of the beat guys on his logic to leave Lopez out there in the 6th inning last night?  Was a pretty indefensible move, so I assume he was asked.  I wasn't able to find anything on twitter.  

If you saw anything, please post. 

11 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

Did anyone see if Ricky made any postgame comments to any of the beat guys on his logic to leave Lopez out there in the 6th inning last night?  Was a pretty indefensible move, so I assume he was asked.  I wasn't able to find anything on twitter.  

If you saw anything, please post. 

 

3 minutes ago, SouthWallace said:

 

I don't hate the logic of letting him try to work out of it.  But it seemed obvious to me that he had run out of gas/lost his command and should have been pulled after the bloop.

Edited May 30, 20196 yr by SouthWallace

That quote is unreal.  He's in his own god damn world.  So you thought he had one more in him (which in itself is inexplicable given we all have eyes and could see he had nothing but smoke and mirrors all night) AND you failed to have anybody warming up?

I'm sorry but that's not good enough for a MLB manager.  And it's not the 1st time it's happened.

1 hour ago, chitownsportsfan said:

That quote is unreal.  He's in his own god damn world.  So you thought he had one more in him (which in itself is inexplicable given we all have eyes and could see he had nothing but smoke and mirrors all night) AND you failed to have anybody warming up?

I'm sorry but that's not good enough for a MLB manager.  And it's not the 1st time it's happened.

Long winded explanation to cover for not having anyone up in the pen to start the inning.  Seems about right.

Edited May 30, 20196 yr by SouthWallace

2 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Yea that's the spirit.  At this point he looks like pitching depth which is OK.  If he's the 5th starter in 2021 forward that's not the worst thing in the world.  Sox needed to get one TOR starter from the Eaton deal and although it's not the one we expected they got one.  If Gio turns into a borderline ace solid / #2 and Lopez is an average 5th starter getting arb raises there are worse outcomes from that deal.

Lopez would also be helped by using an opener from time to time.  He seems to have about 15 batters or 4 innings where he's lively enough with the fastball to be effective.  Until he gets more comfie with his off speed stuff he can't face an order the third time through.

Lopez two times through the order, then bring in Covey for two times through the order. If either one doesn't have any stuff that night, bring in the other sooner.