Grant Taylor has emerged as one of the Chicago White Sox most effective weapons early in the season, but a key question remains: What is the best way to deploy him?
Kauffman Stadium has long been a house of horrors for the White Sox, but after snapping a 14-game losing streak in Kansas City on Thursday, they capped off the series with a gritty 6-5 win Sunday to earn a four-game split, with Taylor playing a key role. Sunday’s victory forced Will Venable to empty his bullpen, using nine pitchers to record 27 outs, bookending a series that showed both sides of the coin in how Taylor can be deployed for better or for worse.
On Thursday, Taylor entered the game out of the bullpen in the sixth inning, tasked with protecting a one-run lead while inheriting runners at first and second. He managed to escape the jam by getting Jonathan India to fly out to left field.
After the offense tacked on an insurance run in the top of the seventh, Taylor returned to the mound for the bottom half of the inning and recorded two quick outs. After allowing back-to-back singles to Maikel Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr., he once again wiggled out of trouble by getting Vinnie Pasquantino to ground out to second before passing the baton to Jordan Leasure and Seranthony Dominguez, who closed out the 2-0 shutout.
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Entering the season, this is what many envisioned out of the back end of the White Sox bullpen: a three-headed monster of hard-throwing righties, spearheaded by Taylor, Leasure, and Dominguez. Taylor has yet to give up a home run in the MLB, making him an ideal candidate for late inning situtions.
The only problem is that Taylor has made four of his seven appearances as an opener this season. It’s a strategy that Will Venable found success with last season, but not one he intended to use so early in the year.
However, after seeing the starting rotation allow a combined 25 runs through the first six games of the season, Venable felt compelled to turn to Taylor during the home opener to try to position their starters for more success. There is no denying that it has made the White Sox more competitive. After starting the season 1-5 using traditional starters, the White Sox are now 3-1 in games that Taylor has opened.
Taylor has yet to allow a run as an opener and has held opponents to a .063 batting average. By delivering a scoreless first inning, he has allowed pitchers like Erick Fedde and Sean Burke to ease into the game without facing the top of the lineup, while also giving the offense a chance to hit without being in an early hole.
Taylor returned to his opener role Sunday and delivered two scoreless innings, throwing 21 of 27 pitches for strikes. His electric arsenal was on display again, freezing Bobby Witt Jr. with a 100 mph fastball in the first inning and striking out Salvador Perez on a 99 mph heater in the second. He finished the day with a pair of strikeouts and no walks.
But that strategy comes with a cost late in games. The White Sox needed the help of some late-game defensive heroics from Dustin Harris, who robbed Michael Massey of what would have been a game-tying home run in the eighth inning.
It was the type of high-leverage spot where the White Sox would typically turn to a pitcher like Taylor. But instead, Venable was forced to exhaust his bullpen after Taylor opened and Jonathan Cannon exited with an injury in the third inning without recording an out. It was a situation that easily could have turned into a disaster. Five days earlier, the White Sox weren’t as fortunate.
On April 7 against the Orioles, they held a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning, a spot that would typically suit Taylor. The only issue: he was unavailable after opening the day before. The White Sox went on to allow three runs in the eighth and lost 4-2.
When you have a player with the potential to be a Mason Miller–caliber arm at the back end of the bullpen, using him in the first inning can feel like a waste of resources, despite the early success the strategy has produced.
Taylor wants to be a starter long term, and while the White Sox are open to exploring that option, they have been clear that they think the 23-year-old is better served coming out of the bullpen this season.
Given Taylor’s triple-digit fastball, it’s easy to see why the White Sox prefer him in a hybrid role. He owns a 30% strikeout rate, has walked just 6% of batters faced, and has limited opponents to a .211 expected batting average, one of the best marks in Major League Baseball this season.
In a starter role, he may not be able to give the same max effort that would allow him to consistently pump triple-digit heat. He is also young, with just 45 career innings under his belt, and hasn’t been built up to a true starter’s workload.
But at the same time, Taylor has been remarkably efficient. He needed just nine pitches to get through the first inning against the Blue Jays on April 3, then another nine the next day to record another scoreless first inning. If the White Sox truly wanted to stretch him out more as a true starter, Taylor, in theory, could easily make it through at least four innings in under 60 pitches.
It’s not an enviable decision for the White Sox, who need Taylor to help stabilize a struggling starting rotation but risk leaving themselves exposed when they need him most in the late innings.
There are reinforcements on the way, with Noah Schultz set to make his MLB debut on Tuesday. As more of the White Sox top pitching prospects get called up, Taylor could settle back into more of a consistent high-leverage role.
Because of this, it seems unwise to try to convert Taylor into a full-time starter in the middle of the season, for the time being. But if the opener strategy is the approach they stick with, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be given a shot in the starting rotation next season.
