Dane Dunning won't fill Carlos Rodón's spot in White Sox rotation vs. Indians

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We're running out of guys who could potentially start in Carlos Rodón's place Saturday against the Cleveland Indians.

A day after White Sox manager Rick Renteria said it likely wouldn't be red-hot reliever Ross Detwiler who slides into the rotation as a fill-in for Rodón, who's currently on the injured list with shoulder inflammation, general manager Rick Hahn said the task won't fall to Dane Dunning, either.

Dunning, the highly touted pitching prospect acquired in the same 2016 trade that brought Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López to the White Sox, has shown some great promise during his minor league career, and that includes during "Summer Camp" last month at Guaranteed Rate Field. But still coming back from the Tommy John surgery he had last year, the White Sox aren't ready to put him on the big league starting staff quite yet.

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"I can say right now, Dane Dunning's not going to be the guy we go to on Saturday when Carlos' first vacated spot comes up," Hahn said Wednesday. "He's continuing to build up his endurance and essentially is a guy who is coming back as a starter post-TJ without the ability to go on rehab assignments.

"We have a very strict program he's following, and it doesn't quite include making his major league debut come this Saturday. But at some point we're going to let him in."

Certain White Sox fans have been calling on the team to include Dunning as part of the major league starting-pitching mix since before the season started, and injuries that sent not only Rodón but also López to the injured list have only produced more of those calls. And it's not like the White Sox haven't been close to doing it in the past. Hahn said before the start of the 2019 season that if it hadn't been for Dunning's arm injury, he might have been part of the rotation as early as last year's Opening Day.

But unlike Rodón, who made the Opening Day rotation after his own recovery from Tommy John surgery, Dunning is not yet far enough along in his recovery to be deemed ready for big league action as a starter. And with the news Hahn provided on the status of both Rodón and López on Wednesday relatively good — Hahn said both injured pitchers could be back with the team in just a few weeks — there might not be that many starts to make in their place.

And so the White Sox might not go the traditional route in plugging the hole in the rotation behind Giolito, Dallas Keuchel, Dylan Cease and Gio González.

"It's not going to be, knock on wood, long-term issues for either of them," Hahn said. "You've heard me say time and again about the timing of promotions of prospects. We want to make it about the individual player, not about the need in Chicago or a hole somewhere on the roster in Chicago. Certainly when it comes to Dane, he's no exception. It would be conceivably easy for us to say, 'All right, we're going to bring him Saturday because there's a need. We'll just keep (him) at three (innings) and 45 (pitches) or something like that in terms of that outing.' But we don't feel like that's in his best interest long term.

"If we need to go and get creative or deal with some spot-start-like situations a couple of times through, we'll make the most of it.

"Let's get through today. We know who's available today, we have a general idea of what we want to do tomorrow. Once we get to Saturday, we'll probably start piecing that thing together once we get through tomorrow night's game and head into Friday to figure out what's our best alternative."

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What that could lead to is simply a bullpen day or the use of an opener. The White Sox bullpen was among the most frequently called upon relief corps in baseball coming into Wednesday night's game, but it's been darn good, too. Detwiler might not be jumping into the rotation, but there's nothing to say he couldn't throw a couple innings at the start of Saturday's game. Major league rosters shrink from 30 players to 28 on Thursday, but that means the White Sox will still have some extra room to work with. A bigger bullpen could mean a parade of relievers against the Indians on Saturday.

And if that works, maybe every fifth day just becomes the bullpen's day to soak up a few more innings until Rodón or López come back.

Hahn said it was unlikely the White Sox were to look outside the organization for rotation help at the moment. If you think it's difficult to try to figure out whether to give up long-term pieces for short-term help in a normal season, imagine how hard it is when the trade deadline comes a month after Opening Day and there are no minor league games going on. But the team did just add a free agent on a minor league deal, bringing the 36-year-old Clayton Richard back to the organization that drafted him.

There's no doubt that the pitching depth that seemed like such a plus for the White Sox before the season started has been used up in a hurry. Forty percent of the starting rotation is on the injured list, as is Jimmy Lambert, and Michael Kopech elected not to play due to personal reasons. Things have changed rapidly.

Given how day to day just about everything involving the 2020 season is at the moment, don't expect the White Sox to settle on a plan for Saturday for a bit still.


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