Coming into the postseason, left-hander Carlos Rodón represented a wild card for the Chicago White Sox.
Rodón made only six starts after July 29, including just twice during the final three weeks of the regular season. When Rodón has been healthy this year, his performance — 2.14 ERA in 16 starts between April and mid July — put him among the baseball’s best starting pitchers. He wasn’t a lock to be part of the Sox’s American League Division Series roster because of his health, limited by what he described before Sunday’s 12-6 win against the Houston Astros as arm soreness and fatigue.
“My goal this year was to just get through the whole season and obviously perform. I think just staying on the field and getting through the whole season, the performance would just take care of itself,” Rodón said Sunday. “If we go back and look at the last two years, it was, what, (7⅔ innings) last year, (34⅔) innings the year before, and then this year it jumped to, what, (132⅔). It’s a big workload. It’s not that I don’t want to take on the workload. It’s kind of hard on the body.
“That’s not an excuse. It just is what it is. I’m still standing here now trying to get on the mound and pitch, do my job.”
Rodón’s job now is to save the Sox’s season Tuesday afternoon in Game 4 at Guaranteed Rate Field (1:07 p.m., FS1). Sox manager Tony La Russa is sticking with Rodón after Monday’s game was postponed due to a rainy forecast. La Russa could have skipped Rodón and went with Game 1 starter Lance Lynn on normal rest, but opted to stick with Rodón.
The Sox face another elimination game, and it’s unclear how much they can get out of Rodón or what version they will see. Even the Astros know there have been two different Rodóns. Which one shows up Tuesday could determine whether the Sox’s postseason run ends.
“It all depends which Rodón is present,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said Sunday. “According to our reports, he hasn’t been throwing quite as hard as he was before, but maybe the rest did him well. We’ll see. We’ll see which Rodón that we’ll be facing.”
Rodón said Sunday he’s turned a corner the last few days, so much so he lobbied La Russa to start Game 3. La Russa stuck with Dylan Cease, who allowed three runs and walked three, lasting 1⅔ innings in a contract of effectiveness in the first two innings. Each day Rodón has felt better, so “there’s a progress there that we’re optimistic,” La Russa said. The manager added that Saturday was the first time in a long time Rodón remarked he felt pretty good.
Rodón has thrown to see how the baseball comes out of his hand and what type of arm strength he currently possesses. His throwing sessions have ranged from a bullpen, which La Russa estimated he last threw Friday, to flat ground work.
Asked if Rodón has truly turned a corner, La Russa replied: “I hope so. We’ll see.”
“Carlos is a competitor, he wants to be out there,” catcher Yasmani Grandal said after the Game 3 victory. “He wants to make sure he’s on the mound. We’ve seen what he can do when he’s a full go, so the fact that he has actually been saying, ‘Hey, I got it, I got it, I got it,’ it’s great news to hear. So I’m very excited for that.”
In his final regular season start, five shutout innings versus the Cincinnati Reds on Sept. 29, Rodón’s four-seam fastball maxed out at 92.7 mph and averaged 90.9 mph — 4.5 mph below than his season average. His velocity was way down on his slider and changeup too, but his fastball velocity is particularly concerning. Those velocity numbers slowly diminished over a three-start span in September, culminating in those figures cratering against the Reds.
While he made it work in his start against Cincinnati, allowing just one hit while striking out four and walking two, the Astros have knocked around Sox starters in the postseason. Pitching with less velocity than Rodón typically works with and coming off lingering arm issues to face one of the deepest lineups and best offenses in the league is not an ideal situation in a win-or-go-home game.
“I think it would be better, more velocity he has, the better his chances are of getting a lineup like that out,” La Russa said Monday. “I think he’ll have more than he did that last game against Cincinnati, but let’s wait and see. If he has more and he is throwing in the middle of the plate, it’s not better than if he had less and was hitting his spot, so that’s why it’s pitching, not throwing.”
The Sox won’t have Michael Kopech available to potentially bail them out if Rodón falters early. Despite gaining an off day Monday from the postponement, La Russa confirmed Kopech will still not be available Tuesday after throwing 47 pitches in his 2⅓-inning appearance Sunday night. La Russa indicated Lynn and right-hander Reynaldo Lopez — who pitched two innings in Game 1 — could be length options behind Rodón should innings be needed in Game 4.
“Best case, Carlos gives us enough to where we just use the bullpen that showed up (Sunday) night,” La Russa said.
The Sox need more from their starting pitchers if they are to survive the ALDS and advance to play either the Tampa Bay Rays or Boston Red Sox in the AL Championship Series later this week. Heading into Game 4, right-handers Lynn, Lucas Giolito and Cease combined to post an 11.17 ERA (12 earned runs in 9⅔ innings) while walking 10 Astros hitters and striking out 10.
The unknown of what type of stuff Rodón will have adds another level to the drama of the Sox’s second straight elimination game. And though it wasn’t brought up, Rodón’s first postseason start could also the last in a Sox uniform for the 28-year-old impending free agent.
“Sports is a special thing, right? There’s comeback stories. There’s guys that you have never heard of and they have a big moment,” Rodón said. “There’s guys that come back from injury. There’s a lot of things. It’s just part of the game we play.
“I think for any professional athlete, it’s part of the thing we do. There’s going to be some adversity, but special teams seem to push past that adversity, and there’s only certain things that we can control.”
