{"id":660371,"date":"2026-04-03T06:10:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/660371\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:10:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:10:32","slug":"white-sox-to-deploy-grant-taylor-as-opener-amid-early-pitching-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/660371\/","title":{"rendered":"White Sox to Deploy Grant Taylor as Opener Amid Early Pitching Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six games into the 2026 season, it\u2019s never been more clear that the Chicago White Sox<\/a> need to make a change.<\/p>\n

And while I could nitpick every last thing going wrong<\/a> right now, it\u2019s probably better to focus on one flaw at a time. Nothing stands out more than the struggles of the White Sox starting rotation, and pitching staff at large.<\/p>\n

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With a 1\u20135 record, the White Sox currently have a team ERA of 8.63 \u2014 the worst mark in baseball by more than three full runs.<\/p>\n

Through six games, White Sox starting pitchers have accounted for just 23.1 innings pitched. That\u2019s fewer than four innings per start. As a result, an already taxed bullpen has been getting knocked around for big innings on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

White Sox relievers own a 9.12 ERA with nearly as many walks (21) as strikeouts (24) over 25.2 innings pitched. Meanwhile, opposing bullpens have dominated Chicago\u2019s lineup, posting a 0.74 ERA with nine walks and 37 strikeouts.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not going to win many ballgames with that kind of disparity.<\/p>\n

So what are the White Sox to do? They don\u2019t have starting pitchers capable of providing consistent depth. They don\u2019t have a well-rested bullpen. Top to bottom, this is the worst pitching staff in Major League Baseball right now \u2014 and we\u2019re only six games into the season.<\/p>\n

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For Friday afternoon\u2019s home opener at Rate Field against the defending American League champion Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago is going to try something different: deploying an opener ahead of scheduled starter Sean Burke<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Right-hander Grant Taylor<\/a> \u2014 who might just be the best reliever the White Sox have \u2014 has been working in a multi-inning role out of the bullpen<\/a> this season. He\u2019ll get the ball first against Toronto.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to see the logic. Chicago\u2019s starting pitchers have averaged 21.8 pitches in the first inning this season, and Burke needed 29 pitches in the opening frame against Milwaukee<\/a> on Saturday, allowing three early runs before eventually settling in.<\/p>\n

If Taylor can navigate the top of the Blue Jays\u2019 lineup, it could allow Burke to ease into his outing without an early setback, and maybe even pitch into the sixth or seventh inning before manager Will Venable has to turn back to the bullpen.<\/p>\n

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All we know for sure is that the White Sox pitching staff has not been good enough. At this point, any change is a welcome sight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six games into the 2026 season, it\u2019s never been more clear that the Chicago White Sox need to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,11613,843,4,2003,5168,70,396,2562,998],"class_list":{"0":"post-660371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-chicagowhitesox","12":"tag-grant-taylor","13":"tag-milwaukee","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-sean-burke","16":"tag-starting-pitchers","17":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","18":"tag-white-sox","19":"tag-whitesox","20":"tag-will-venable"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116339292634715224","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}