After a rocky June, Davis Martin regained his dominant form against Kansas City ahead of a big matchup against the Guardians
It has been an up-and-down month of June for Davis Martin.
The Chicago White Sox right-hander entered this month with a 2.00 ERA and a 26.9% strikeout rate in his first 11 starts. He was on track to earn his first All-Star selection and was even ranked top-5 in the American League Cy Young voting poll on MLB.com.
But June hasn’t treated Davis as well.
The 29-year-old has had a few poor outings this month. He allowed six runs on 10 hits with two strikeouts across 4 ⅔ innings against the Minnesota Twins on June 2 and then gave up a season-high nine runs on eight hits with four strikeouts against the New York Yankees on June 16.
After that season-worst outing against the Yankees, though, Martin has done a fantastic job bouncing back. He ends June with back-to-back really good starts and will enter July trending up.
Martin threw six innings of one-run ball with three walks and four strikeouts against the Detroit Tigers last week. He followed that up by throwing 5 ⅓ scoreless innings with three strikeouts against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday afternoon.
It’s definitely a nice sign to see Martin give up just one run over his last 11 ⅓ innings pitched. He has looked much better on the mound across these last two starts and has kept the South Siders in the game in both outings.
In Saturday’s start against the Royals, the White Sox starter was poised on the mound. He did a nice job mixing up his pitches to keep Kansas City’s hitters off balance. That resulted in seven whiffs, 12 called strikes, and a 30% chase rate in this game.
Martin didn’t face much trouble in this outing. He allowed just five baserunners and got out of jams when needed. The only time the Royals offense was threatening was in the top of the second inning after back-to-back hits from Michael Massey (single) and Salvador Perez (double). Kansas City then had second and third with only one out.
However, Martin got out of it by striking out John Rave on a beautifully placed sinker on the inside corner of the zone and striking out Nick Loftin on a four-seam fastball below the zone.
Martin needs to show more of that swing-and-miss stuff moving forward. His low strikeout numbers recently have been a bit concerning. He has struck out four batters or fewer in four of five June starts and ended the month with a below-average 16.5% strikeout rate.
That part of his game has taken a step back over the last few weeks, but Saturday’s outing is another step in the right direction for the right-hander after a couple of poor starts earlier this month.
Martin will now carry this outing into a very important road series against the Cleveland Guardians that begins on Thursday. The White Sox currently sit one game ahead of the Guardians for first place in the American League Central, making this a pivotal four-game series.
If Martin pitches like he did on Saturday, the White Sox would be in a good spot in that series opener on Thursday.
