White Sox pitching prospect Kopech's struggles continue
Throughout April and well into May, the popular Michael Kopech question was simple - when is he coming to Chicago?
In his first 6 starts of the season with Class AAA Charlotte, Kopech had a 3.00 ERA to go with 39 strikeouts and 13 walks over 30 innings.
In 7 starts for the Knights since May 11, the White Sox's best pitching prospect has struggled mightily, posting a 7.24 ERA with 44 strikeouts and 29 walks over 32⅓ innings.
Thursday night, Kopech seemed a lot closer to being demoted to Double-A Birmingham than being promoted to the Sox.
Lasting just 3 innings in a start at Norfolk, the 22-year-old Texan gave up 5 runs on 2 hits and a staggering 8 walks. Kopech also had 2 strikeouts, hit 2 batters and 51 of his 86 pitches were balls.
"He struggled commanding the fastball yesterday," said manager Rick Renteria, who always reviews the White Sox's top prospects on video. "Just continue to get back to the drawing board, work through his side work, get back and hopefully try to get in a position where he's commanding the fastball and able to use his secondary pitches.
"He's had a few tough ones. Hopefully the next one will be better. Hopefully his fastball command will be there and he'll be able to use all the other pitches that he has in his repertoire and be able to attack hitters."
Even when Kopech was on top of his game in the early part of the season, the Sox were in no rush to bring him up to the major leagues.
"We are trying to develop a front-end starter in Michael's instance," White Sox general manager Rick Hahn said. "Not getting too far down into Michael's checklist of what we want to see him accomplish, but he hasn't checked them all off yet. He's had some real good starts. He's getting closer and it's not going to surprise me seeing him here at some point in the not too distant future. But he's not there yet."
Dealing with failure in the minor leagues is all part of the process of eventually having success in the big leagues.
"I think that's one of the things that young pitchers, young players, will struggle with because they want to have success immediately," Renteria said. "And by the way, in today's age, everybody wants success right away. You have to have some patience. But you have to also know that there's a way of going about doing things.
"If players grow frustrated, they lose opportunities to learn something from that particular moment. As soon as they come to grips with the reality that you're not always going to be perfect, you're not always going to get a hit, you're not always going to have the best day between the lines, you have a chance to improve."
Having former Nationals pitching coach Steve McCatty in the same role at Charlotte should only help Kopech get through the down times.
"I learned a ton working with McCatty," said Sox starter Lucas Giolito, who spent most of last season with Charlotte. "A lot of it was about trusting my stuff."
Kopech has quality stuff, topped by a 100-mph fastball, not that it helped him much in Thursday's nightmarish outing.
"It's going to be something that he'll grow from," Renteria said. "But it's not unusual, it's not abnormal. It happens to guys, and hopefully he'll be back on track and continue to show some of the things that we all expect that he's going to become, which is a pretty talented and effective pitcher."