Athletics righty J.B. Wendelken will return from the injured list in time to be included on tomorrow’s postseason roster, reports Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Oakland placed the righty on the injured list over the weekend without specifying a reason. While the vague nature of his placement and his quick return suggest that he was very likely on the Covid-19 injured list, that doesn’t mean Wendelken ever tested positive. Players can be placed on the Covid-19 IL for experiencing symptoms or if they come into contact with someone who previously tested positive.
Wendelken, 27, has quietly emerged as a key member of the Oakland relief corps. He’s racked up 25 innings with a 1.80 ERA and 3.07 FIP in 2020, averaging 11.2 strikeouts, 4.0 walks and 0.72 homers per nine innings along the way. Dating back to the 2018 season, Wendelken has given the Athletics 74 1/3 innings with a 2.30 ERA, a 3.03 FIP and well north of a punchout per inning pitched. This year, Wendelken ranks well above average in fastball velocity, fastball spin, average exit velocity, opponents’ hard-hit rate and expected ERA, per Statcast.
A deep bullpen mix will be crucial against a formidable White Sox lineup that features multiple legitimate MVP candidates in Jose Abreu and Tim Anderson. That duo, plus the presence of Eloy Jimenez, make Wendelken all the more important, as he’s held opposing righties to a .205/.266/.319 slash in his career — including a .175/.226/.246 slash in 2020. Wendelken may well relish the chance to the White Sox, who traded him to Oakland in exchange for Brett Lawrie back in the 2015-16 offseason.
That’s not the only notable bit of pitching news for the A’s today. The club announced on Twitter that rookie left-hander Jesus Luzardo will get the nod to start Game 1 of this week’s Wild Card series against the ChiSox, with right-hander Chris Bassitt lined up to take the hill in Game 2. Bassitt, like Wendelken, will be in line to make his postseason debut against the team that traded him to the Athletics.
Boo ya!
luzardo game 1 had a feeling that would happen, his stuff was is much preferred over Manaea who looked shell shocked in last years wildcard game
Tired of seeing Manaea in big games.
Luzardo has tremendous upside whereas Bassitt is just a beast, and now with J.B. Wendelken coming back to bullpen duties oh wow! Good luck Chisox…
The 6 main bullpen options for the WSox are no picnic either. Whoever is leading after 5 innings will be a challenge for the trailer to come back on.
Giolito and Keuchel are both beasts. And the bullpen with Colome, Bummer, Marshall, Heuer, Foster, Crochet? Good luck Oakland…
Teams are pretty much even. Sox have 2 better starters and A’s have a slightly better bullpen.
Without Chapman, the White Sox offense has significantly more upside than the A’s. Their only problem is they tend to disappear at times, which isn’t surprising seeing as most of their hitters are young. If the offense gets rolling like it has at times throughout the season, they can mash with anyone in baseball.
Also, I’m not sure the A’s bullpen is better. They are certainly more experienced, but I’m not sure they can go 6-deep with really, really good options like the Sox. That being said, I can assure you that they are managed better, which makes a gigantic difference and gives them the edge. I can all but guarantee they wouldn’t throw Cordero out there on a nightly basis.
This series will come down to which White Sox team shows up. If they play (and manage) like they have over the last week, I am 100% sure they will lose. If they put last week behind them and start clicking again, I don’t think they’ll have any problems getting past Oakland.
IF they do start clicking on all cylinders (and that’s a BIG IF), the only 2 teams in the AL I’d be scared of are the Indians and Yankees (assuming they’re healthy).
I’m not sure Bullpen’s need to go six deep, and there is no doubt the White Sox pen has pitched brilliantly.
It should be a fun series. I’m looking forward to it.
We’ll see. I’m not sure going 6 deep is too excessive with the way pitching staffs are handled these days, especially with no rest between playoff games this year. Like I said though, Ricky is a specialist at mismanaging them, so we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.
I really, really hope it’s a fun series. I’m thrilled that the Sox are in the position they’re in right now and would’ve happily taken it if you offered it before the year started. But if the play like they have over the last week, it’ll just be depressing. That being said, it’ll be hard for me to call this season anything but a success. I like where the team is at and love where they are headed.
White Sox went 14-0 against teams that started a southpaw this season. Say what you want, but this isn’t going to be an easy series for Oakland.
Sox were able to play the 2 worse teams in the AL in Tigers and Royals who layed down. The A’s played a tough NL west and dominated their division. So comparing who played the better teams is no match because of the tigers and royals in the AL central jacked up the other 3 teams records.
You do realize that the Royals were a .500 team vs everybody but the White Sox, don’t you? Tigers weren’t far behind. And they played against a division that’s occupying 4 spots in the NL playoffs. Oakland played a whopping 6 games vs teams with a record >.500 this year; the Sox played 32. Let that sink in.
You do realize that you are cherry picking stats to make a point. i could waste your time and mine by cherry picking stats. Royals were not a good team stop pretending. Its like me claiming if Mariners didn’t play the NL west they would have had a winning record. Tigers were a very bad team. NL central got 2 teams in that barely had a winning record. One had a losing record. giants had the same record as the Brewers or the NL west would have had 3 teams in if it wasn’t for the Giants choke job to end the season.
What stats am I cherrypicking? The White Sox absolutely demolished both the Royals and Tigers; they were relatively competitive against everyone else. The actual comparison would be if the Mariners got killed by only 1 team – say Oakland – but that didn’t happen. They were worse than .500 vs every team except AZ (2-1), LAA (5-5), SD (3-3), and TEX (8-2). They were a slightly below average team that only got to slightly below average because they beat up on a terrible Rangers team.
And the West is nowhere near as good as you think. Outside of the Dodgers, Padres, and A’s, the rest of the teams are mediocre at best, with Texas being absolutely terrible. As for Oakland specifically, the rest of the AL West is bad. Outside of a healthy Astros team, everyone else would be fighting with KC and Detroit for 4th and 5th place in the AL Central.
“NL central got 2 teams in that barely had a winning record. One had a losing record. giants had the same record as the Brewers or the NL west would have had 3 teams in if it wasn’t for the Giants choke job to end the season.”
I don’t see your point. “Barely a winning record” was good enough to beat out all the losers in the NL West. Let’s also not forget that the second “best” team in Oakland’s division made the playoffs with a losing record… The AL West was the worst division in baseball this year, and I don’t think it was particularly close.
And no, that’s not me saying Oakland isn’t good.
I think you’re missing the point. The AL Central is/was one of the toughest divisions in baseball this year. Saying the Royals and Tigers “laid down” for anybody is just not true.
Unfortunately, it may not matter at this point for the Sox. They just aren’t the team they were since the road series against the Reds a month ago.
If the Sox bring their bats (and stop striking out on sliders low and away, it will be tough for the A’s to beat them. If the Sox don’t score early and often, this series could look a lot like every game against the Indians this year. The Sox struggle with teams who can pitch and defend well, which is Oakland’s strength.
There was a break down of the left handed starters that the sox went against. They were not very good left handed starters so that 14 – 0 record doesn’t have as much backing when you take out their record against the Sox those putchers have a losing record. The nine lefties that faced the white sox had a .18 WAR Luzardo is a better starter than any of them.
CHW went 18-2 against the Royals and Tigers, if thats not bending over I don’t know what is. Don’t forget 3-1 against the pirates. They only won 14 other games, 12-20 against teams over .500
There were no other teams over .500 in the West because the A’s, Dodgers and Padres posted winning records against all of their divisional opponents, not just the bottom two (which happens to include Trout and Rendon in the AL West). Having more teams with a winning record and no clear division leader might make it tougher to get top seed but doesn’t mean the teams are better. Central is about to get exposed after the WC series.
You sure about that?
I guess the Sox can hit good lefties
Hmm pretty sure the Sox, Indians, Twins, and Reds already got bounced and Cubs choked against the Marlins LOL. I guess Central is a joke after all.
Side note – how the heck has Oakland only played 6 games vs teams with a winning record? That’s absurd. The Sox have played 32.
They dominated their division from the start of the season.
With the exception of the Bullpen, Oakland is a very ordinary team. However, that exception is HUGE….
It shows you how a good GM can make a team a World Series contender without breaking the bank.
The White Sox series is going to be very interesting. I’m looking forward to it.
Well chapman got injured, semien and Olson and laureano are worse compared to last year. Although laureano was hitting great up until his little wrestling match with the Astros. Murphy the catcher looks really good. Canhas power is way down. Theyve won alot of games in late innings, that covid delay and 7 inning double headers seemed to get them off track and they havent really been playing well for several weeks.
To Priggs89, all of the A’s games played against the Astros and Giants were when both of those teams were over .500, so your stat is a bit misleading. Those teams kind of went in a downward spiral after we had played them.
That’s fair; I can see how the stat may be misleading. It could’ve/should’ve probably been labeled as their record vs teams that finished over .500. That being said, I don’t think it’d make much of a difference in the end.
Detroit was 17-17 on September 3rd. The Sox had already taken 6 out of 7 from them at that point. Kansas City never saw .500 from the 5th game on, but they still managed to finish 26-34 on the year despite going 1-9 vs the Sox.
Now imagine how much worse that record would be if they had to play Oakland, TB and the Yankees instead of each other and a team that lost 89 games last year. Stop pretending they would be close to TEX and LAA (especially after adding Rendon) or that the Asterisks would be under .500 after 162 games.
You could say that about literally every team in baseball. All the top teams would be worse if they played each other every night. The point remains the same – Oakland is the only really good team in the AL West right now.
Texas is terrible. They would be competing in the basement of the AL Central. The Angels are also terrible somehow despite having the best player in the history of baseball and another top 5 player in the AL. They would be a 4th place team in the AL Central.
Imagine if the teams in the AL West had to face the Indians rotation 10 times. Or if they had to pitch to the Twins lineup 10 times. They would be much worse.
Pitching Luzardo in Game 1 when most of the White Sox home run hitters back right-handed is risky. I recall Art Howe letting Tim Hudson pitch twice against the Twins in 2002, when most of their Batters were Lefty Hitters and we had Cy Young Barry Zito that year. Zito and Mulder won their games but Huddy got shelled.
Starting a lefty makes Abreu a average hitter. Opposite for Anderson he becomes a great hitter. Anderson will be the key guy in their lineup against Luzardo. Pitch around him.
Giolito has very little weakness against him. Key for the A’s is get runners on. He is not as good with baserunners.
Abreu had an .873 OPS vs LHP this year. For his career, it sits at .927. I wouldn’t call either of those numbers average…
I wish my name was that of an oil baron.