Cooper: Jackson was tipping pitches
Don Cooper waited until the end of Edwin Jackson's bullpen session Sunday morning to reveal a long-held secret.
"He was tipping his pitches," Cooper said. "We knew what he was throwing."
Ah, so that helps to explain why, in Jackson's final two starts for Detroit last season, the White Sox racked him for 14 hits and 13 runs in 12 innings.
It also might explain why Jackson posted a 6-10 record with a 5.16 ERA in 21 starts for Arizona before joining the Sox on Saturday.
Whatever happened in Arizona, however, Cooper believes can stay in the dry heat.
He walked away enthused by Jackson's 20 minutes of work prior to the White Sox' 4-1 win against Oakland at U.S. Cellular Field.
"I was excited, looking forward to it all yesterday," Cooper said. "Last night I was thinking about it. This morning, when I woke up, I was thinking about it. I'm even more excited now because the process has begun - and the sideline we just had.
"It went very, very well. I can't remember how long ago I was this excited about a sideline, about a bullpen."
What the heck did Jackson do to warrant such praise?
"I'm not sure," Jackson said with a laugh. "I wasn't throwing 105. I wasn't down there (being) Stephen Strasburg. It was just me."
Jackson boasts the raw materials, including a 98-mph fastball and a sharp slider, to overpower batters.
But in his 1341/3 innings for the Diamondbacks, Jackson issued 58 unintentional walks and an NL-worst 13 wild pitches.
Clearly, there's something more at issue than some tipped pitches as Jackson prepares to make his Sox debut Wednesday at Detroit.
Cooper alluded to "a couple mechanical things" he saw on video.
"Everybody's got their key," Cooper said. "I don't like - we don't like - to overdo mechanical verbiage and get guys thinking about their left earlobe and their big toe and things like that. We like to keep it simple.
"Many, many times, it is fairly simple to see what a guy is doing wrong. The job is, can we get that shored up? And that's what we just started."