Pregame notes: Jake Eder gets to experience two games as a big leaguer (2024)

Logistically, Jake Eder as the 27th man maybe isn’t the sexiest thing that’s ever happened in baseball history. The Twins offer a lot of lefty bats, but the third lefty in the pen getting significant work after being recalled from Double-A sounds like one half of this doubleheader turned into a blowout.

From a long-term view–the only way to view the White Sox that responsible from a personal health perspective–one of the higher ceiling arms in the organization and the return from the Jake Burger trade is in the majors. It’s likely for a day, a convenience born from Eder already being on the 40-man roster, and a prelude to the left-hander joining up with Ky Bush in the Charlotte Knights rotation.

Eder was recently lauding the pair of new pitches that Brian Bannister added to his arsenal in a single bullpen, and had a dominant 10-strikeout start in the immediate wake of the changes. It’s been tougher sledding in three starts since, with a 9.00 ERA in 13 innings spiked by five home runs allowed. He agreed with the idea that there’s been more learning how to use his new tools his last three times out.

“Just kind of knowing when to use them, what counts, what situations. Then, getting the feel a little bit for some of the new grips,” said Eder, who remains optimistic about his seam-shift changeup even if it’s also part of that acclimation process. “I’m kind of learning like what makes it good and what doesn’t make it good. What makes it move differently with kind of the new way he showed me about how to throw it. So, it’s been a learning process but ultimately it’s getting a lot better.”

Nightcap starter Drew Thorpe has also been undergoing some grip changes, mostly to make his cutter harder and firmer to separate it from his slider. The two pitches were blending, where as Thorpe wants the slider to be a traditional chase pitch moving to his glove side, and wants his cutter to essentially serve as a fastball that runs inside on left-handed hitters.

“Last year I was throwing it harder and it was where I wanted it to be,” Thorpe said. “I don’t know what happened earlier this year but it was softer and little bit more horizontal on it. I think it was a combination of a mindset thing and a little bit of a grip change.”

A functional cutter running up and in to lefties just allows his changeup to play up more. And with more frequent pops of 93 mph from his four-seamer during his last time out in Miami, Thorpe thinks the cutter isn’t the only pitch seeing some benefits of some recent video review to get his mechanics closer to where they were last season.

Pedro Grifol is pulling from actual motion tracking data when he quotes these specific percentages to describe how rehabbing players are running. Though I doubt that will fully ease the confusion from his stating that Yoán Moncada briefly reached “101 percent” earlier this week, provoking optimism that he could return to the active roster soon after the All-Star break.

That’s at least partially the reason for an infield alignment that’s been jumbled around to get Lenyn Sosa some more time at second base, where he could conceivably find a semi-regular home in the second half. Paul DeJong was the everyday third baseman for Double-A Springfield in 2016 in addition to taking reps there in practice, so no one is getting thrown for too much of a loop.

“This kid can swing the bat and he’s interesting at second base and we’re going to give him an opportunity to do so,” Grifol said. “If he can play second base, there’s a possibility of him being an offensive second baseman over there because he’s shown the ability to swing the bat. Now, a long way to go here. He’s got to continue to swing the bat, play the game the right way, be consistent, dependable. But right now he’s looking pretty promising on the offensive side.”

After another confounding Triple-A rehab start for Mike Clevinger, in which he got up to 62 pitches (acceptable) but didn’t get out of the third inning (hmm), his readiness for a return to the major league rotation still reads as uncertain, even before asking the question of whether it would be nice to see him dominate International League hitters first. Grifol said Clevinger felt good physically after pitching Tuesday and is more trying to return from elbow and neck issues than shaking off the rust of missing spring training at this point.

The next step is still be determined, and the looming All-Star break doesn’t force any urgency, but Grifol floated building up Clevinger’s stamina in the majors. Until Garrett Crochet or Erick Fedde depart by trade, it can look like as a crisis response in the absence of a crisis. Clevinger has yet to look like an answer on the field (6.75 ERA with the Sox, 6.11 ERA with the Knights), but the Sox have consistently treated him as someone whose necessity will reveal itself with time.

“There’s a possibility we might use him for length, but not a lot of length and just build him like that,” Grifol said. “Two and two-thirds? We’re still a ways away from him taking the ball and going six innings. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t use him in another way and kind of build him up here as we move forward. The break’s coming now, so we’ve got some time.

We knew Matt Foster was back in Chicago, we knew it was for a setback in his Tommy John rehab. What we learned today is that Foster has a back strain. The White Sox hope he can ramp up again after the All-Star break. Now we know everything about Matt Foster.

This is the gamethread for today. It’s going to be too crazy to get up a second game lineup post in time.

FIRST PITCH: WHITE SOX VS. TWINS

TV:NBCSCH, MLBN (out-of-market only)

Lineups: