White Sox: John Danks makes ’15 spring debut
After a rough start, Chicago White Sox starting pitcher John Danks pitched relatively well on Thursday, making his Cactus League Spring Training debut against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Danks faced a total of eight batters, where he allowed two hits (the first two batters he faced in the first inning) and one run, also in the first inning.
The RHP had no strikeouts, no walks and allowed no home runs in his two innings of work.
Being that it was his first start of the spring, there really isn’t much you can put into this except for the fact he got some good work in, and now we just wait for the next start of the spring for the projected No. 4 starter of the White Sox this season.
Danks faced Joc Pederson to start the game, where he allowed a ground ball single to right field and Darwin Barney, who doubled to left field on a line drive.
The lone run Danks allowed came on a ground out to second base by Yasiel Puig for the first run and out of the game. Danks also faced Scott Van Slyke, Justin Turner, A.J. Ellis, Enrique Hernandez and Chris Heisey.
Danks’ stating pitcher counterpart, NL Cy Young award winner and the reigning MLB Most Valuable Player Clayton Kershaw, was in mid-season form against the White Sox.
John Danks was asked what's different about this spring compared to a few years ago. Danks: "About six miles an hour." #WhiteSox
— JJ Stankevitz (@JJStankevitz) March 5, 2015
Kershaw in his two innings was perfect with no runs, hits or walks allowed. He struck out three of the six batters he faced, including Jose Abreu on a called third strike curveball to end the first inning.
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Back to Danks for a second … he’s coming off a season where he was 11-11 with a 4.74 ERA, so if he can just pitch a little better than that, with the other pitchers the White Sox have in front of him in the rotation, that could be considered a successful season.
Last season, in five spring starts, Danks was 1-1 with a 2.96 ERA in 24.1 innings. In those spring games from 2014, he held batters to a .244 average and compiled a 1.27 WHIP.
All in all, after the first two batters, Danks settled down and didn’t allow a hit for the rest of his first spring outing of the ’15 season … that I consider a small victory for Danks and the White Sox.
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