1. Jose Quintana’s performance in Wednesday’s 8-6 loss to the Diamondbacks is tough to figure out. His first three innings were perfect — zero baserunners, five strikeouts. He seemed well on his way to his second straight stellar outing, third straight quality start, and putting all of his early season struggles to bed for good. And this one coming against the team with the third highest team OPS in the majors.
And then he fell off a cliff.
What happened over the next two innings resulted in Quintana’s worst result of the year — 4 1/3 innings of work, eight earned runs, and an ERA almost a full run higher than what he started the day with.
Quintana’s performance, to put it simply, comes down to location. Take a look at where Kevan Smith sets up and ends up on a couple of the Diamondbacks’ key hits (click the image to make it bigger):
Fourth inning: Nick Ahmed double on 92 mph fastball
Fourth inning: Paul Goldschmidt double on 92 mph fastball
Fifth inning: Jake Lamb home run on 91 mph fastball
Quintana has never had overwhelming stuff, instead finding success with pinpoint precision, and he missed badly on these three key Arizona hits and a few others during those disastrous two innings. His strikeout numbers come from mixing speeds and hitting his spots, and when he’s not placing his fastball with consistency, good hitters feast.
The good news is that struggles based on command seem more fixable than if, say, his velocity were dipping or his offspeed stuff wasn’t breaking. And his teammates seem to realize this.
“For us it’s also a tough thing to figure because he has been so great in his career,” first baseman Jose Abreu said through an interpreter. “It’s something that we are not accustomed to seeing from him. But he’s a hard worker and we all know how talented he is and we’re all confident in him. I think it’s just a matter of one thing for him to clean it up and to be that Jose Quintana that we know.”
Quintana’s issues are concerning, but while the two terrible innings against the Diamondbacks show what happens when he’s at his worst, his start against Seattle and the first three innings Wednesday show he can still be dominant when he’s commanding his fastball.
Why he’s not consistently doing so right now is a mystery. But the talent is still there. Hopefully he finds it soon.
2. Jose Abreu has been murdering baseballs lately. After going 4-for-5 with a home run Wednesday, he’s up to .291/.347/.531, and has five multi-hit days in his last eight games. Among American League first basemen, he ranks third in home runs and OPS, trailing only Logan Morrison and Yonder Alonso (what?) and is second in WARP behind only Alonso (what?).
Abreu’s been known to put together long streaks both hot and cold throughout his career. But since a slow first couple of weeks, Abreu has mostly been the hitter we’ve come to know over these four years and even better than a year ago. His ISO and TAv are both as high as they’ve been since his rookie season, and his wRC+ is on par with his 2015 season.
In observing this, the mind obviously wanders in the direction of trade value, particularly when the White Sox other positional trade targets (Todd Frazier, Melky Cabrera) aren’t doing much to help their trade value. The problem is finding potential partners for a first baseman, as there aren’t many contenders in need of one.
This isn’t a real problem as watching Abreu hit is flat-out fun. And while his departure would make sense if the White Sox were to get a trade package they found suitable, if would be unfortunate, at least the eyes of this observer, because Abreu is so damn easy to root for. If he gets traded, it would be a logical mood, but if he sticks around and mashes all season long, that’d be pretty cool, too.
3. Leury Garcia went 2-for-4 with his sixth home run of the season in Wednesday’s loss, and Nick Schaefer continues to look smarter and smarter. We talked about Garcia’s improved hit tool recently, but we’re now more than a quarter of the way through the season and he ranks behind only Mike Trout, Charlie Blackmon, and Lorenzo Cain in WARP among center fielders. You know that what? I mentioned earlier about Alonso and Morrison? Garcia going from fringe major league utility player to above-average center fielder blows that out of the water.
And as surprising as his offensive production has been, his defense in center has been equally impressive, as he ranks behind only Jarrod Dyson, Byron Buxton, and Ender Inciarte in FRAA among center fielders.
This continues to make very little sense, and there’s still a lot of season left, but while Garcia will still likely level off at some point as the season progresses, he seems like a completely different player. And it’s a very welcomed development.
4. While Anthony Swarzak and Tommy Kahnle have been the surprises of the bullpen thus far this season, David Robertson looks as sharp as we’ve seen him in a White Sox uniform. And in terms of players improving or at least holding steady their trade value, he’s done as well as anyone.
After a two strikeout inning Wednesday, Robertson is up to 24 strikeouts in 17 innings on the season, and both his K% and BB% have returned to what he was known for prior to his rough 2016 season.
Rumors regarding Robertson and a potential deal to the Nationals persist, and while that will continue to make sense, bullpen needs among contenders will only grow as July 31 nears. Robertson remains the most likely player to be traded on the White Sox roster.
5. Wednesday concluded a 10-game west coast stretch where the White Sox swung through Los Angeles, Seattle, and Arizona without a day off, and are off Thursday before a doubleheader and four-game home series against the Tigers.
The White Sox went 3-7 during this stretch, sandwiching a 3-of-4 victory over the Mariners between being swept by both the Angels and Diamondbacks. They’ve played 16 of their 45 games at home, far and away the fewest in baseball thus far (Cleveland has played the second fewest at 19). But regardless of that, they seem to be pretty well settling into the level of mediocrity we expected this season.
Lead Photo Credit: Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports