CHICAGO — I just couldn’t help myself. The heat index was 105 degrees when I hopped on the train in Downtown Chicago to head to Guaranteed Rate Field on Monday, August 26 — the day after the White Sox had lost for the 100th time of the 2024 season — and I had the sudden urge to send a snarky Slack message to Meg Rowley. “What are the odds that I’m one of 20 people in the stands today?” I also included a screenshot of the AccuWeather Minutecast.

After her response, two words that appropriately acknowledged the sweltering conditions, the exchange continued:

Matt Martell: Only the true sickos watch a team in August with more losses than the temperature.

Matt Martell: Is that my lede???

Meg Rowley: i think it is

I received my Certified Baseball Sicko diagnosis at an early age, but even I wouldn’t have endured that heat to watch the worst team in modern baseball history if I didn’t have to be there for work.

Chicago was the second stop on a cross-country roadtrip that had begun the previous Wednesday morning in Poughkeepsie, New York — about 20 minutes from Hopewell Junction, where I grew up and where my parents still live — and would end in Seattle 17 days later. My first destination was Pittsburgh, where on Thursday I saw Paul Skenes start, and wrote about his impact on the organization and its fans. The next day, I drove to Chicago to spend the weekend at Saberseminar with eight other FanGraphs staffers, including Michael Rosen, who detailed “the preeminent conference at the intersection of dingers and calculators” for Defector. I stuck around one more day to watch the White Sox play at home before driving to Minnesota on Tuesday to catch Wednesday’s Twins-Braves game.

Initially, I planned to ask a few dozen White Sox fans the same question: Why are you here? Of course, that is a question for the ages, one that could prompt a meditation on the meaning of life, but I was interested in a more specific context. Really, the connotation of my question was this: Why are you spending money to witness the team that you love degrade itself with such historical ineptitude? If that sounds needlessly harsh, well, that’s why I would’ve gone with the more philosophical and broadly worded version, but the purpose of my asking such a question wouldn’t have been cynical. Quite the opposite, in fact. There’s something romantic about cheering for a terrible team with the unconditional love that Roger Angell captured in his writings about the early-60s Mets. It’s the beautiful, irrational core of fandom that we sportswriters often overlook. That’s what I intended to do at the ballpark that night, anyway. Instead, the fans I encountered were there for a different kind of unconditional love.

After spending an uneventful top of the first inning talking with White Sox farm director Paul Janish, I left the press box for the stands. I never learned the journalist’s trick to estimate crowd size, so I can’t give you a number for how many people were in the ballpark for Davis Martin’s first pitch. What I can tell you is that the number was below the official 10,975 paid-attendance figure, and that I had no trouble finding good seats in the section behind home plate. I looked around and saw there weren’t many White Sox fans in the area: A middle-aged man and his not-quite-large adult son sat in the back and to the left of me — back and to the left — and one preschool boy who ran down the aisle before his dad caught up with him. That was pretty much it.

After another look, I realized that I was sitting among a sea of Tigers fans who all seemed to know each other. They cheered with every strike, but they also had a nervous energy that they were trying not to show; some were more successful than others. A few were clasping their hands together as if they were praying, while others were choking their beer cups instead of drinking from them. They grew more anxious as Andrew Vaughn stepped in with runners on the corners and one out; they offered reassurances after Vaughn’s sacrifice fly gave the White Sox an early lead. Finally, they erupted when Gavin Sheets grounded out to end the inning. The reaction seemed a bit excessive for a first-inning groundout against an opponent who at the time had a 31-100 record, but then I noticed something. Most of them were wearing a Tigers cap with the same lettering stitched into its side above the right ear: Ty Madden 8-26-24.

Ah, yes. That makes sense, I thought.

I pulled the Tigers’ game notes out of my pocket just to be sure. Yup, Detroit’s starter that night was Madden, a 24-year-old righty who had just been promoted from Triple-A Toledo. Unknowingly, I was sitting with his family and friends — about 50 of them, as one of his mom’s friends later told me — watching him complete the first inning of his major league career.

Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Madden other than his name, so I pulled out my phone and checked his FanGraphs player page and prospect report. Entering this season, Eric Longenhagen evaluated Madden as a “high-probability no. 4/5 starter,” assigned him a 45 FV, and ranked him the fifth-best prospect in the Tigers organization. Madden was bumped down to sixth when Eric updated the list midseason, after Detroit had drafted one prospect who ranked ahead of Madden and traded for another. (Colt Keith, who ranked third in the Tigers system before the season, exceed rookie limits during the year and wasn’t included on the latest list.)

While writing this story, I asked Eric for an updated evaluation of Madden based on his 2024 performance, and here’s what he said:

He’s had a pretty surprising uptick in walks this year, and when you put on the tape, he is indeed struggling with release consistency. But he’s sustained above-average stuff and has been durable amid multiple delivery tweaks since turning pro, and I think it’s fair to expect that he’ll eventually either refine his feel for his current delivery or keep making changes until things click. He’ll operate in a starter’s capacity for the foreseeable future during the regular season, but his current strike-throwing issues make him more of a multi-inning relief fit on Detroit’s playoff roster.

Madden had a much easier time in the second inning. He allowed a one-out single to Dominic Fletcher, who was erased two pitches later on Lenyn Sosa’s inning-ending double play. A woman a few rows in front of me shouted, “Yeah, Ty!” as he walked back to the dugout.

It was around this time that I decided I would stick with the Maddens for the rest of the game and skip the White Sox fans story. So many great pieces have been written about fans watching the team’s futility — Ben Strauss of The Washington Post has been sharing his favorites on Twitter all week, and I’d encourage you to check them out — and I’ve enjoyed reading them, but I figured I’d probably never again get the chance to see a major league debut through the eyes of his family and friends.

I knew I would write about watching the Madden Family Cheering Section watch Ty, but I didn’t want to intrude on their special moment, so I set a few rules:

1) I wouldn’t talk to them until Madden finished pitching, unless they said something to me first.

2) I would tell them exactly what I was doing as soon as I introduced myself, and if they weren’t okay with it, I would figure out another way to do this piece or come up with something else to write.

3) I wouldn’t interview them; they’d have enough going on without some stranger sticking a recorder in their faces. Instead, I would talk to them and take notes about what I experienced sitting there with them, but I wouldn’t quote any of them by name.

I think the beer started kicking in for the two White Sox fans sitting behind me in the third inning, because they suddenly became much more animated. Every time Martin threw a strike to the Tigers batters, the dad and his adult son would shout, “Yeah!” After the first few times it seemed to me that they were directing their voices at the Madden Family Cheering Section. The father and son weren’t mocking the Maddens, and their shouts weren’t aggressive, but they were crisp and targeted, as if to signal that they were going to support their starter more than the Maddens would support Ty. It was kinda sad, then, when it became clear that the Maddens weren’t paying them any attention. It was a fitting depiction of these two organizations in microcosm: The Tigers were beginning to mount their stunning surge to a Wild Card berth, and they couldn’t be bothered by the lowly Pale Hose.

The two Sox fans were interrupted by a beer vendor who was using the heat index as his sales pitch. “Miller Lite! Modelo! Water!” he hawked, sounding remarkably similar to the actor John C. Reilly. “Hey, let’s stay hydrated here!” One Madden family friend flagged him down for a Modelo as Martin struck out Matt Vierling to retire the Tigers in order in the third.

Madden worked into trouble again in the third, allowing a leadoff single to Chicago nine-hitter Brooks Baldwin, who swiped second, before walking Nicky Lopez. First and second, nobody out, Luis Robert Jr. at the plate. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.

Madden’s family and friends got louder. He said after the game that he’d blocked them out so he could stay focused, but that didn’t make any difference to them. They were behind him, no matter what. He buckled down; Robert grounded into a 6-5 fielder’s choice and Andrew Benintendi popped out. He wasn’t out of the inning yet, though. The next batter, Vaughn, blooped a four-seamer off the plate inside to right field. Vierling came up firing to home, but catcher Dillon Dingler — elite name — whiffed at the one-hopper as he tried to sweep-tag Lopez and the ball got past him. Madden was backing up, but he couldn’t field the errant throw either. Robert advanced to third and Vaughn moved up to second on the error.

The inning could’ve spiraled from there, but Madden refused to unravel. He missed low with a first-pitch changeup to Sheets, evened the count with a four-seamer that Sheets took for a called strike, and then got Sheets to swing over a tight slider dotted on the low-outside corner. His 1-2 offering was another slider that looked just like the previous one out of his hand and for most of its trajectory to the plate. Sheets took a healthy hack but came up empty as the bottom completely dropped out of the pitch. It was Madden’s first major league strikeout. His friends and family exploded, their cheers so propulsive it was as if they were daring him to look up at them, but he never did. He was locked in.

“Yeah, well, he still gave up a run,” the adult son behind me said loudly. He got no response and didn’t heckle the Maddens again, but that wasn’t the last we heard from him. In the bottom of the fourth, when once again Sosa was batting with Fletcher on first and one out, a foul ball went over my head and bounced off a stadium usher’s butt. “He got hit in the ass! He got hit in the ass!” jeered the son. The usher was fine. As was Madden, who got Sosa to pop out and then struck out Baldwin to end the inning.

Things got interesting with two outs in the top of the fifth, when Kerry Carpenter and Vierling singled to put runners on the corners and bring Keith to the plate. A three-run homer would give the Tigers the lead, and if Madden made it cleanly through the fifth and the bullpen closed things out, he would earn the win. Sitting there with his family and friends, I realized I was hoping for this exact scenario to happen. How weird it was for me, the associate editor of FanGraphs, to be rooting for a pitcher win. But I knew it would matter to everyone in the Madden Family Cheering Section. Beyond the fact that it would make this a better story to write if he were to win his big league debut, I felt a strange sense of loyalty toward these people, even though I had not yet introduced myself to them.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Keith didn’t blast a go-ahead dinger, but he did line a single into shallow left to drive in Detroit’s first run. Vierling went first to third on the knock, and Keith advanced to second on Benintendi’s late throw to third. Jace Jung came up with the chance to give the Tigers the lead with a base hit, but he struck out swinging. The inning was over, the White Sox were leading 2-1, and Madden was still in line for the loss.

The tension ratcheted up in the home half of the frame when Madden issued a two-out walk to Benintendi. He’d just thrown his 86th pitch, and I feared manager A.J. Hinch would go to the bullpen instead of letting Madden face Vaughn, who’d driven in both White Sox runs, for a third time. But Hinch stuck with his young righty, who rewarded his manager’s faith by getting Vaughn to pop out on a first-pitch cutter. The Madden Family Cheering Section, correctly assuming that was Madden’s last pitch, gave him a standing ovation. Once again, he didn’t hear them and kept his eyes straight ahead. He was in his element, and they wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The Maddens couldn’t exhale yet. Because the Tigers didn’t go to their bullpen in the fifth, Madden technically was still in the game, and if they took the lead here, he would be the pitcher of record. Spencer Torkelson doubled to lead off the sixth, but the next three batters went down in order. Madden’s night was over. His final line: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 2 K.

Around this time, I introduced myself to the women sitting in front of me, who were friends of Madden’s mom. One of them told me they learned that Madden was getting promoted two days earlier, shortly after Madden got the news and phoned his parents — Brian and Misty — back home in Houston. His parents quickly assembled the members of the Madden Family Cheering Section, which they estimated to include 50 people, though none of them knew the exact number without taking a headcount. Many of them flew up from Houston for an eventful week that would only begin with Madden’s debut. The same woman said her daughter was getting married back home on Sunday, so the Madden Family Cheering Section would trade in their Tigers caps for their best suits or dresses and all be together again that coming weekend.

The Bally Sports Detroit crew came over to interview Brian, Misty, and Ty’s wife Breton, who was holding their sleeping three-month-old daughter Miller, live on the broadcast during the bottom of the sixth. While that was happening, Misty’s friend told me that the next day Brian and Misty would go to Toledo to help Breton with the move to Detroit. Madden told me after the game that the next day was also Breton’s birthday, so his parents would be with her for it while he was with the team for a home game against the Angels.

When Parker Meadows led off the seventh with a game-tying home run, a man in the Madden Family Cheering Section proclaimed, “No decision! That’s a no decision baby!” I never expected a no decision to stir such passion from a person; after all, the only thing more inherently neutral than a no decision is Switzerland. But I, too, was thrilled to see Meadows even the score and get Madden off the hook. The happiest man in Chicago then turned and gave me a thumbs up. I smiled and responded in kind.

The Tigers scored four more runs that inning and held on for a 6-3 win to sweep the White Sox, bringing their record to 66-66. The series feels like a turning point for their season; Madden is the last Detroit pitcher to start a game while his team had a losing record. Sure, that’s a specific bit of trivia that doesn’t really matter much, and yes, he has played a minor role for these Tigers, but he has played that role well. He has pitched four times since making his debut, all as a multi-inning reliever in games that Detroit used an opener. Across 23 innings, he has a 4.30 ERA and a 3.99 FIP, good for 0.2 WAR. He is a solid depth bullpen arm and swingman, and pitching-first teams like the Tigers need guys like that.

Now, five weeks after his debut, Madden has earned a spot on the Tigers’ roster for the AL Wild Card Series against the Astros in Houston, Madden’s hometown. His career, like his team’s competitive window, is just beginning, and we don’t know how long either will last. No matter what happens, whenever I see or hear his name, I’ll remember that gross, barely bearable August night in Chicago, when I sat in the Madden Family Cheering Section and watched him fulfill his dream of becoming a major league pitcher. That was as good a reason as any to be there.

It was supposed to happen on Tuesday. Loss no. 121, the record-setter, the final stamp of disapproval on this year’s Chicago White Sox. It couldn’t have gotten worse after a 3-22 start, but it didn’t get much better. The White Sox tied the modern-era record for losses in a season with a week to spare, which gave plenty of notice to prepare the latest round of postmortem analysis for the worst team in major league history.

ESPN’s entry, by Buster Olney and Jesse Rogers, noted that the White Sox had the opportunity to lose their record-setting 121st game on Dog Day at Guaranteed Rate Field, sponsored by Tito’s Handmade Vodka. (Drink responsibly.) I had the same joke in my column, which was originally supposed to run Wednesday morning. Rule no. 1 of sportswriting: Don’t look a gift metaphor in the mouth. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago White Sox haven’t had much go their way this year, and that includes the pitching department. Only Garrett Crochet (4.4) and the since-traded Erick Fedde (2.6) have produced as much as 1.3 WAR. Those things said, a few young pitchers have shown promise, one of them being 24-year-old rookie right-hander Jonathan Cannon. Over 119 2/3 innings, the 2022 third-round pick out of the University of Georgia has logged a 4.37 ERA, a 4.57 FIP, and 1.2 WAR — not sexy numbers, but thanks to a five-pitch mix and a cerebral approach to his craft, his potential is real. Prior to the season, Eric Longenhagen assigned Cannon a 45 FV, calling him “a high-floored no. 4/5 starter prospect thanks to his repertoire depth and command.”

Cannon discussed his M.O. on the mound when the White Sox visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

———

David Laurila: You’re primarily known for your sinker, which you’ve thrown more than any of your other pitches this season. It’s also the pitch you’ve had the least success with from a statistical standpoint. Why is that?

Jonathan Cannon: “For the most part, it’s been the command of it being bad. If you look at the best sinkerballers in the game right now — I’m thinking guys like Logan Webb — what makes their sinkers so good is they do a really good job of commanding it down-and-away to righties. It kind of sets up everything else. When they’re missing, they’re missing down, but more middle. Right now, I feel like I command the outer half well, but a lot of them are elevated to around thigh high. When it leaks into the middle and is thigh high, I don’t get a lot of groundballs with it. That’s kind of been the main focus for me. When I do miss, I want to miss where I’m getting a groundball rather than a hard line drive into the gap. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

If you’ve read even a couple installments of this column, you know that roster changes are my favorite things in baseball. Free agents, trades, extensions, IL stints… I don’t really care; they’re all interesting and fun to follow! My love for such machinations isn’t limited to players, though. I’m also a big fan of managerial and coaching changes, so much so that I have a personal Excel workbook that contains nothing but a list of the current coaching staffs.

So, now that we’ve reached the point of the season when the managerial carousel starts spinning — David Bell’s firing by the Reds on Sunday was the latest move — this is a great time to look over who teams could have on their candidate lists. At least three teams will be in the hunt for managers: the White Sox, Reds, and Marlins. Miami hasn’t officially moved on from Skip Schumaker, but he’s already discussing his tenure in the past tense. Teams with a managerial vacancy almost always cast a wide net, so I’ll do the same in running down some options. Read the rest of this entry »

Prior to talking to him in Wrigley Field’s home clubhouse in late August, my knowledge of Ethan Roberts mostly consisted of his being a 27-year-old, right-handed reliever with limited big-league experience and a high spin rate. I also knew he’d had Tommy John surgery in 2022 as that was mentioned, along with his spin, when he was blurbed as an honorable mention on our 2023 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects list.

The 2018 fourth-round pick out of Tennessee Technological University has added to his résumé since we spoke and now has 27 appearances for his career, 18 of them this year. His numbers in the current campaign include a 2.66 ERA and 23 strikeouts over 23-and-two-thirds innings. Three days ago he tossed a scoreless frame against the Washington Nationals and was credited with his first big-league win.

Roberts learned that he spun the ball well upon entering pro ball. Not long thereafter, he learned that not all spin is created equal.

“It was my first time around technology,” explained Roberts. “I threw a bullpen and my fastball was spinning pretty high. It was spinning like 2,800 [RPMs] —right now it’s more 2,600-2,700 — and I actually throw it very supinated. It’s kind of like a natural cutter. But yeah, when I got on technology there, in Arizona [at the Cubs spring training complex], I was like, ‘I don’t know what any of this means, but thanks for telling me.’”

Which brings us to his spin characteristics, as well as to pitch classifications. Read the rest of this entry »

I first learned of the kick change while in Chicago for Saberseminar in late August. Chatting with Garrett Crochet and Jonathan Cannon in the White Sox clubhouse prior to a Saturday game, I heard the term from Cannon, who was describing a new pitch that one of their rotation mates, Davis Martin, had recently begun throwing. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

The following day, I learned even more about the atypical offering. Brian Bannister presented at Saberseminar that Sunday, and the kick change was one of the subjects he brought up. Moreover, the White Sox Senior Advisor to Pitching subsequently spoke about it in more detail while taking questions from the audience, this particular one coming, not surprisingly, from my colleague Michael Rosen.

As luck would have it, two opportunities to hear even more about the kick change were right around the corner. The White Sox visited Fenway Park this past weekend, and with Boston being my home base, I was able to sit down with Martin to get his perspective on the pitch, as well as the story of why and how he learned it. Then the Orioles arrived in town, so I talked to reliever Matt Bowman, who not only has something similar in his arsenal, but he also is Bannister-esque when it comes to the art and science of pitching. I spoke to the veteran right-hander about the kick change and its close-cousin relationship with the better-known split change.

Here are my conversations, lightly edited for clarity, with Martin and Bowman.

———

David Laurila: What is the kick change?

Davis Martin: “It’s basically for supinators. I’ve never been a pronator. It’s for guys that have really good spin talent and have always had the ability to get to that supination plane. But pronating is very unnatural for us from a physiological standpoint. Read the rest of this entry »

Jaden Hamm was surprised when he was selected by the Detroit Tigers in last year’s draft. That it happened in the fifth round wasn’t unexpected — he’d been projected to go in the three-to-five range — but the organization he would soon ink a professional contract with certainly was. The right-hander out of Middle Tennessee State explained it this way when I talked to him prior to a game at West Michigan’s LMCU Ballpark last month:

“I get a call [from my agent] and he’s like, ‘The Tigers are you taking you in the fifth,’” Hamm recalled. “ I was like, ‘What?’ He was like, ‘The Tigers.’ I was like, ‘I know who you said, but I didn’t expect that.’”

Subterfuge played a role in the surprise. Hamm had talked to Detroit’s area scout only a handful of times during his junior season, and while he went to the draft combine and had meetings with teams. the Tigers weren’t one of them. His best guess was that he was going to be drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, or Houston Astros. That none of them — nor any other team — pulled the trigger in time has turned out well for the Tabbies. Hamm has emerged as the second-best pitching prospect in Detroit’s system, behind only shooting star Jackson Jobe.

The numbers tell a big part of the story. In 99 innings with West Michigan, the 22-year-old (as of earlier this week) Hamm has overpowered High-A hitters to the tune of a 2.64 ERA, a 3.10 FIP, a 30.6% strikeout rate, and just 73 hits allowed.

Another part of the story are Hamm’s metrics, which include 20-21 inches of vertical ride on his low-to-mid 90s four-seamer. Learning how best to employ his heater is yet another part of how he’s gone from relatively unknown to a breakout prospect. Read the rest of this entry »

Late Wednesday night, I was poking around the internet looking for inspiration. A badly timed bout of writer’s block had kept me working on my Spencer Schwellenbach article well into the evening, so I wanted to get a head start on Friday’s piece and pick a topic before I went to bed. That’s when I saw this, from Weird Twitter agenda-setter and Batting Around podcast host Lauren:

i think all the 2024 white sox team records should stand but somehow player records should get expunged. like, the MLB stat nerd community has a duty to figure out how stuff was handled when individuals were held responsible for plagues that effected cities in babylon

— lauren (@Very__Regular) September 5, 2024

Over the past few days, you’ve probably seen something about how the AL Central has four teams with winning records, but the White Sox have been so bad they’ve dragged the division as a whole dozens of games under .500. This fun fact relies on the Detroit Tigers keeping their heads above the break-even point — a delicate tightrope act if ever one existed — but it speaks to an exciting possibility: That the White Sox might be so bad they’re breaking the curve for everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

Garrett Crochet has been overpowering hitters in his first season as a major league starting pitcher. In 27 outings comprising 128 2/3 innings — the woebegone White Sox have been especially cautious with his workload since the All-Star break — the 25-year-old southpaw has a 34.2% strikeout rate to go with a 3.64 ERA and a 2.83 FIP. Relying heavily on a four-seamer/cutter combination that’s augmented by a sweeper and the occasional changeup, Crochet ranks in the 92nd percentile for fastball velocity at 97.1 mph, and in the 93rd percentile for whiff rate at 32.9%.

Crochet sat down to discuss his repertoire and approach prior to a recent game at Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field.

———

David Laurila: Most fans are familiar with you as a pitcher. That said, how would you describe yourself?

Garrett Crochet: “I guess I think of myself as a power pitcher. I pretty much rely on two pitches, although I would like to maybe open the floor a little bit more for [additional] usage of the slider and changeup. Some outings call for that more than others, but to be honest, I haven’t gotten many reps with my changeup. It’s been difficult for me to incorporate that pitch very much in a year where I’m relying pretty much solely on efficiency. It’s been about not wanting to waste pitches. That’s why it came down to me using the fastball and the cutter primarily.” Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Kopech didn’t even crack the headline in our coverage of the three-way July 29 trade involving the Dodgers, Cardinals, and White Sox that sent him to Los Angeles, and we were hardly alone. Just about everywhere outside of Chicago and Los Angeles, the focus of the trade landed upon Tommy Edman and Erick Fedde, and rightfully so given the expectations that both would be starters in one sense or another. A fireballing reliever with a 4.74 ERA and -0.2 WAR switching teams may not have been a footnote given Kopech’s history and stuff, but he rated as more of a project than an obvious solution.

Yet even then it wasn’t hard to appreciate that there might be some method to the Dodgers’ madness. After all, in recent years the team has gotten strong results from similarly underwhelming pickups ranging from starters Tyler Anderson, Andrew Heaney, and Alex Wood to relievers Anthony Banda, Ryan Brasier, and Evan Phillips. As Noah Syndergaard’s tenure showed, not all of their salvage jobs were successful. “But more often than not,” wrote the Los Angeles Times’ Mike DiGiovanna in January, “the Dodgers have revitalized the careers of middling pitchers and optimized the production of pitchers they have, their ability to identify and acquire those with untapped potential and implement plans to maximize performance helping to fuel their run of five 100-win seasons in the last seven years.”

While the fact that he has one year of club control remaining probably factored into his acquisition, Kopech has paid immediate dividends. In the three weeks since the trade — a small sample of work all the way around, admittedly — he’s easily been the most productive of the five big leaguers in the three-way deal (the Cardinals’ Tommy Pham and the White Sox’s Miguel Vargas being the others apart from Edman and Fedde). The 28-year-old righty has flat out dominated opponents, allowing just one hit and one walk in 9.1 scoreless innings for the Dodgers, earning the trust of manager Dave Roberts. Last week, with their NL West lead whittled down to two games by the surging Padres and Diamondbacks, Roberts called upon Kopech to close out a pair of one-run games against the Cardinals, and he converted both chances. With the team concerned about overusing a “gassed” Kopech, Phillips and Daniel Hudson have been tapped for the two save situations since (both of them protecting three-run leads). Nonetheless, it’s clear that Roberts has another late-inning weapon, and a much-needed one at that. Read the rest of this entry »