Stinky Socks: Mariners vs. White Sox Series Preview

The Mariners went .500 on their recent jaunt to the Bay Area and Kansas City, winning the series with the A’s but narrowly avoiding getting swept against the Royals. There’s no break for the Mariners, who have played 23 games in the past 24 days, but hopefully they’ll get a bit of a spell here against the cellar-dwelling White Sox. Four-game series are notoriously hard to sweep (or mop, as is the preferred parlance around these parts), but the Mariners need to put in a strong showing against the wounded White Sox–and maybe in the meantime do some scouting for the trade deadline, as currently the White Sox are one of the few definitive sellers around the league.

There’s a place for schadenfreude — in Seattle, the rooms are painted tangerine orange and navy blue — but there’s nothing enjoyable about watching White Sox fans suffer at the hands of inept ownership, unproductive player development, and the general ~ bad vibes ~ of a franchise that seems mired in the muck. It’s very tempting to look at this series greedily, like many other fanbases, window-shopping for trade deadline pieces while already mentally banking wins against one of baseball’s worst teams. But Mariners fans should know better than to allow the cart to get anywhere near the horse, and even more, should have endless reserves of sympathy for White Sox fans, especially those who haven’t defected for their cross-town rival.

The White Sox have recently welcomed Luis Robert Jr. back into the fold, and the 26-year-old Cuban slugger is looking to bounce back strong, as much for himself and his team as for a cities-wide audition for a potential sweet landing spot in a trade, a la Juan Soto with the Nationals in 2022 — although the White Sox are saying to be looking for even more than the Nats did for Soto, which, no one can ever stop anyone from dreaming, and that is beautiful. Beyond La Pantera, this lineup is both sad and hurt, and did we say sad already? Because of the injuries to players like Yoan Moncada and Eloy Jimenez, it’s difficult to recognize any series regulars outside of the perpetually-disappointing Andrew Vaughn, the “can’t miss” third pick overall in 2019 who has, so far, missed. There are also names you’ll recognize from other teams like Paul DeJong and Nicky Lopez; also, Martín Maldonado is here now, and it will be interesting to see if he carries his Mariners-hexing-powers while wearing the South Siders uniform. There are a couple of ex-Astros prospects here in Corey Julks and Korey Lee, and we could make a joke about that but Korey’s brother Kellen is a mental skills coach with the Mariners and we’ve probably tempted schadenfreude enough already. It is so difficult to write about the White Sox, y’all, truly.

Probable Pitchers

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For some pitchers on the fringe of major league relevance, a walkabout overseas to revamp their approach has been an effective way to turn their careers around. Erick Fedde is the latest success story. He won the KBO’s MVP and their equivalent Cy Young award in 2023 and signed a two-year pact with the White Sox this offseason. He added a sweeper to his arsenal, added a few ticks of velocity to his fastballs, and started using his changeup a bit more often. The result is a profile that looks a lot more viable and sustainable than what he was producing in Washington before his stint in Korea.

The White Sox are calling up Drew Thorpe to make his major league debut on Tuesday. The centerpiece of two offseason blockbuster trades — he went to San Diego from New York in the Juan Soto trade and then made his way to Chicago in the Dylan Cease trade — Thorpe is a very polished starter with a mid-rotation profile. He doesn’t have a great fastball on the surface but it really plays up because of his elite changeup; his short arm action produces incredible deception with that pitch pair. Across 34 minor league starts split between High-A and Double-A, he’s compiled an impressive 2.17 ERA and a 3.04 FIP.

Jonathan Cannon was selected in the third round of the 2022 draft and quickly made his way through Chicago’s farm system over the last few years. He was ranked 10th on their organization’s prospect list this year and made his major league debut in mid-April. The foundation of his arsenal is a diving sinker that he pairs with a big sweeper. He’ll also mix in a cutter, changeup, and four-seamer at times, but none of those pitches grade out very well. His first stint in the big leagues didn’t go very well; he allowed 11 runs in three starts before being optioned back to the minors. He was recalled last week and will be making his fourth big league start on Wednesday.

If there’s one reason for optimism on the Southside this year, it’s the development success of Garrett Crochet. Way back in 2020, Crochet debuted as a high-leverage reliever just a few weeks after being selected in the first round of that year’s abbreviated draft. He continued in that role the next year but succumbed to an elbow injury that wiped out all of his 2022 season and most of last year too. Originally drafted as a starter, he made the transition back to the rotation this spring and everything has gone swimmingly. He’s introduced a hard cutter to his repertoire to give him another weapon to work through lineups multiple times and it’s been one of the most effective pitches in baseball. His fastball and slider were already plus pitches and the results from that trio of elite pitches have been eye popping. He’s struck out more than a third of the batters he’s faced so far and has walked just 17 batters on the season. He’s quickly developed into a legitimate frontline starter and should be a core building block the White Sox can build around moving forward.

The Big Picture:

The Mariners scraped out a series win against the A’s, a team they probably should have swept, and managed to not get swept by the Royals, going .500 on the road trip. That was enough to keep them atop the AL West, again, and maintain a five-game lead over the Rangers, who narrowly avoided getting swept by the Giants and will go on to play the Dodgers before coming to Seattle this weekend. The Astros are headed to play those same Giants after taking a series against the Angels, who avoided the sweep thanks to Logan O’Hoppe walking off Josh Hader, which is a deeply satisfying sentence to type. The Angels play the Diamondbacks this week before meeting the Giants, apparently doing a Camino de Santiago against the AL West. The A’s, maintaining third place in the AL West, did not get swept by the Blue Jays this weekend, and will go on to play the Padres to open this week.