GLENDALE, Ariz. — Carlos Rodon was named the White Sox’ Opening Day starter Monday, 10 days before the team’s first game of the 2019 season at Kansas City.
For the Sox’ big-bodied left-hander with the lively fastball and nasty slider, it’s a nice first-time honor. Rodon can rightfully take personal satisfaction having battled various arm problems after the Sox plucked him with the third pick in the 2014 draft. When they did so, both team and player envisioned this becoming a reality one day.
“It’s definitely been up and down for me,” Rodon said after getting the official word. “Last year and the year before, not so great being hurt and coming off of injury, off of surgery. I just proved that I’m good enough.”
Rodon, 26, earned the nod by returning from shoulder surgery in June of last season and pitching like an ace during the months of July and August. He was 5-0 with a 1.84 ERA during that stretch. A dramatic fade in September – 0-5, 9.22 — didn’t cost him the nod he received from manager Rick Renteria at the Sox’ spring training complex late Monday morning.
“He has been looking very, very good,” Renteria said. “Solid, loose and confident. Let’s hope, knocking on wood here, ‘Los is set up for a nice year.”
Rodon will be opposed by Royals right-hander Brad Keller.
Renteria wouldn’t disclose his rotation after Rodon but a good bet would be Reynaldo Lopez, Ivan Nova and Lucas Giolito. Because of three off days in the first two weeks, a fifth starter isn’t needed till April 10. By then, veteran Ervin Santana should be more than ready.
“All of us on the staff are pretty good,” Rodon said. “I am just the fortunate one.”
Lopez was probably the runnerup in the Opening Day derby. The Sox’ best pitcher last season, his first full campaign since arriving in a trade, Lopez went 7-10 with a 3.91 ERA in 188 2/3 innings and was the team leader in Baseball Reference wins above replacement (Rodon was fourth). But Rodon was drafted and developed by the Sox, has been around longer and possesses, as first-year Sox catcher James McCann says, “Cy Young type stuff.”
McCann should know. He caught Cy winners Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and David Price with the Detroit Tigers.
Nova pitched the Pirates’ opener last season but was acquired not to be a staff ace but a strike-throwing, innings-eating veteran to fill a void left by James Shields, who started the 2018 opener by default in a rotation surrounded by unproven young righties Lopez, Giolito and Carson Fulmer and veteran Miguel Gonzalez.
That Rodon goes into 2019 at the very top of the rotation in the third year of the Sox rebuild also speaks volumes about how far the rebuild has to go. Rodon, 26-29 with a 4.01 career ERA, has a ways to climb to meet expectations and the Sox rotation needs to climb with him. The rebuild has many pieces to develop, Rodon included, for the Sox to compete for multiple championships on an annual basis, the stated goal of general manger Rick Hahn in all this.
How far are they away? The Sox, who have finished fourth the last five seasons and fifth the year before those, at best look like a middle of the pack club in a winnable five-team division.
Having Rodon pitch like an Opening Day starter throughout would go a ways toward distancing them from the bottom feeders. Who knows, perhaps Rodon goes on to become the first Sox to start consecutive openers since Chris Sale in 2013 and ’14. As the Opening Day pick, he joins a recent Sox list that also includes former teammates Jose Quintana, Jeff Samardzija and Shields.
“Those guys are pretty good,” Rodon said. “I wouldn’t say I compare to Chris Sale and Jose Quintana. Me taking the ball on Game 1 doesn’t make me those guys, but like I said, it’s an honor to take the ball that day. I’m just ready to compete.”
