Mike Clevinger Shows Promise In White Sox Debut
Regardless of your thoughts on Mike Clevinger as a person, there is no denying he had a promising White Sox debut.
Clevinger did not have his best command, consistently missing high with his fastball. However, in his five innings of work, he had to navigate through three walks and three hits but still managed to keep a potent Astro lineup scoreless through five innings.
Clevinger departed after 98 pitches with a final line of five innings, no runs, eight strikeouts, and three walks, enough to win in his White Sox debut.
Much like the offseason, the 32-year-old found trouble early and often but managed to escape and limit the damage. In the first inning, he issued a two-out walk to Kyle Tucker, then drilled Jose Abreu with a fastball. But Clevinger bore down, dispatching of David Hensley on three straight pitches, punctuated with a 95 mph fastball that Hensely swung through.
In the second inning, he hit Chas McCormick to open the frame, who then stole second to put the go-ahead run in scoring position. After striking out Corey Julks and then getting some help from a great defensive play from Yoan Moncada on a bunt, Clevinger was one out away from escaping the jam, with the runner now 90 feet from home.
He added more pressure to the situation by walking Martin Maldonado, which flipped the Astros lineup back to the top of the order. But Clevinger attacked Jeremy Pena with three straight fastballs in the zone and got Pena to ground out to Moncada to end the innings.
In the fourth inning, he got Alex Bregman to strike out on a filthy 81 mph slider out of the zone, then worked around a one-out base hit by getting Jose Abreu to fly out to center and David Hensley to watch a called third strike on a fastball on the outside corner.
The fourth was setting up to be his first stress-free inning after back-to-back strikeouts of Chas McCormick and Corey Julks. But a two-out hit by Mauricio Dubon forced Clevinger to work around traffic once again. Clevinger then got Martin Maldonado to fly out to right field to avoid damage again.
His fifth and final inning turned out to be the most stressful. He fell behind 3-0 to Pena but battled back with three straight fastballs in the zone. Pena watched all three before heading back to the bench. That’s when the fun began. Clevinger walked Alex Bregman, then allowed a two-out base hit to Abreu to put runners on first and second with his pitch count nearing 100. He clearly did not have much left in the tank as Ethan Katz went to the mound to talk with his sweat-drenched starter.
On a 2-2 count Clevinger grooved a fastball over the heart of the plate to Hensley. Hensley ripped a line drive to right field that looked like it was going to drop for an RBI single until Oscar Colas came racing over to make a sliding grab and save his starter.
“Megatron? Calvin Johnson in center field?” an appreciative Clevinger said after the game when asked about Colas. “Good grief, yeah. It’s very comforting to know you have those guys behind you.”
Overall it was a solid day for Clevinger. He logged 13 swings and misses, with seven off his slider and six off his four-seam fastball.
“The stuff metrically, it’s moving. The execution was exactly how I wanted it to be, Clevionger said. “I actually threw more fastballs than usual.
Fastball was probably the best pitch I had today. It was a good start. Felt life. I felt really good body-wise and healthy. That was the main common denominator.”
There is room for improvement, but if he can return to his pre-Tommy John surgery form, the White Sox could boast the best rotation in the American League. Health was one of the biggest concerns for Clevinger, who had some issues last season and hasn’t thrown 200 innings since 2018.
In his first season back, he posted a 4.33 ERA, 18.8 K%, 7.2 BB%, and 35.2% groundball rate in 114 1/3 innings. He also started a pair of playoff games, allowing seven earned runs in 2 2/3 innings.
Clevinger’s comments after the game provide optimism that he can return to his once-dominant form in Cleveland from 2017-2020. The White Sox took a gamble by signing Clevinger, and for much of the offseason, that gamble backfired. Any goodwill that he had after the signing was lost due to the allegations levied against him. A large portion of the fanbase will never support Clevinger.
All that Clevinger can hope to do is get in the good graces of the fan base one good start at a time.