Five bold Chicago White Sox predictions for September
Prediction Two: John Dank’s September ERA will be above 6.00
John Danks’ 2015 season has been about as frustrating as I expected. It’s torture to watch Danks pitch ineffectively with diminished velocity as he tries to mold himself into a Mark Buehrle look-alike.
Buehrle’s the same man who’s having another solid season with the Toronto Blue Jays for the same money that the White Sox allocated to Danks instead.
Danks has only had one month in which he’s managed an ERA below 4.00, and that was in July when he pitched to a serviceable 3.81 ERA.
Mixed in have been absolute bombshells, such as his April or June, the latter of which he cratered to a 6.85 monthly ERA.
Why do I think John Danks is in line for an awful September?
Despite his stretch of competence, Danks was still getting himself into some jams that the defense had to bail him out of. With a 9.9 H/9 ratio, Danks is always a candidate to put himself in some precarious spots.
The key for Danks recently has been not making mistakes with too many runners on. In his last start, he located two pitches poorly, which Kyle Seager and Franklin Gutierrez quickly deposited deep into the seats.
In that start against the Seattle Mariners, the opposition went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position meaning Danks was very fortunate he didn’t leave with a worse fate.
Yet his ERA is still 7.36 over his last 7 days (two starts), which shows just how bad the one before was.
The White Sox will play seventeen road games in the month of September, meaning Danks could get up to three starts away from U.S. Cellular field, where’s he’s actually been a capable arm.
As strange as it sounds, Danks’ home ERA of 3.42 pales in comparison to his 6.48 ERA on the road.
Danks has been particularly bad against the Minnesota Twins (9.39 ERA) and Detroit Tigers (9.64 ERA) this season, which are two teams he’ll likely start against this upcoming month.
Overall, John Danks is a candidate to get shelled every given time he heads out to the bump, and I think a September ERA above 6.00 may be in the cards for the left-hander, pushing his season ERA above a disheartening 5.00.
Next: How high will the K's go for Chris Sale?