Chicago White Sox's Foster off to stellar start as rookie reliever
Added to the White Sox's 40-man roster in late November, Matt Foster reported to spring training in Arizona three months later both hopeful and realistic.
"A guy can dream, right?" Foster said. "I was hoping for that small chance of maybe even breaking with the team, but I knew it probably wasn't going to happen, I was probably going to go back to (Class AAA) Charlotte.
"I just wanted to get there and work hard, continue to work hard so that I could get an opportunity to get to the big leagues and pitch."
Everything changed March 12 when the coronavirus pandemic shut down major-league baseball, but Foster did wind up getting a chance to pitch out of the Sox's bullpen when play resumed in July.
Drafted on the 20th round in 2016, the 25-year-old reliever is making the most of his chance.
Foster has not only opened his major-league career with 7⅔ scoreless innings, he's struck out 13 of the 26 batter he's faced.
"It's been a whirlwind, a lot of emotions," said Foster, who has added an effective changeup to go with his fastball. "Every day I just go out there expecting if I get in the game, I'm going to go do the best I can and try to give my team the best shot to win the ballgame."
Cease satisfied:
He still is looking to pitch deeper into games, but Dylan Cease did take some positives out of Wednesday's start at Detroit.
"Unfortunately, I did let those unearned runs score," Cease said after allowing 1 earned run on 7 hits over 6 innings. "But at the end of the day, I was able to come back, threw strikes, didn't give up any free passes and kept us in the ballgame and they picked me up. Happy with that."
Striking out five and issuing no walks, Cease was hurt by James McCann's passed ball in the fourth inning that came on strike three to the Tigers' Victor Reyes.
Cease blamed himself for causing the cross-up that led to 3 unearned runs.
Waiting on Cardinals:
The White Sox are off Thursday and scheduled to open a three-game home series against St. Louis on Friday night.
The Cardinals haven't played since July 29 due to a COVID-19 outbreak, but recent tests have been encouraging and they should be back on the field by Saturday at the latest.
"Honestly, I haven't really thought about that too much," Sox manager Rick Renteria said. "We're anticipating playing and we'll deal with any situation that arises that might take us away from that. I think everyone has enough practice in dealing with the times when you're down. Hopefully for us it won't be and we'll just continue to play, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, if it even happens."