At one point in time, Michael Kopech was the White Sox prospect I was most excited about. I even said as much on a hype video that was played during the opening ceremonies at SoxFest 2018.
However, between injuries and inconsistency, Kopech has never lived up to the high hopes I had for him. Recently, I've been telling friends, "I think he's good enough to be a starting pitcher in the majors, but he's not special."
Two games isn't enough to change that assessment, but that said, Kopech has been special in his past two outings.
On Wednesday afternoon in Cleveland, Kopech struck out nine and allowed only two hits over seven shutout innings, leading the Sox to a 6-0 victory over the Guardians.
This comes on the heels of Kopech's win over the Kansas City Royals last Friday, when he flirted with a perfect game and allowed only hit over eight shutout innings.
Here's the combined line for Kopech over his past two starts:
15 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 19 Ks, 1 BB
Kopech (3-4) has lowered his ERA from 5.74 to 4.24. What's different? Well, he's sticking with his best pitch -- the fastball -- and commanding it exceptionally well. Kopech walked 28 batters over his first eight starts. Now, he's stopped issuing free passes.
Of the 92 pitches Kopech threw Wednesday, 62 were strikes. Coincidentally, he also threw 62 fastballs, which generated 12 of Cleveland's 16 swing-and-misses on the day.
Some might say both Kansas City and Cleveland are weak-hitting teams, and that's not wrong. But I would counter by saying we've seen the Royals and Guardians crush Sox pitching before, so I'm not going to demean the accomplishment.
It's also worth noting that this was only the 43rd start of Kopech's career. That's somewhat hard to believe, since he made his major league debut almost five years ago. Perhaps there's still some growth to be made, given his relative inexperience -- in terms of starts and innings, not years of service.
It sure would help the Sox if Kopech becomes a top-of-the-rotation pitcher.
The Sox are 21-30.
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