The current era of good feelings in the White Sox starting rotation came to a bit of a screeching halt Sunday.
The team announced between games of Sunday's doubleheader in Boston that Lance Lynn has a strained right trapezius and went on the 10-day injured list.
Lynn, arguably the White Sox most important addition during the offseason, was stellar in his first three starts of the season. He allowed a couple of unearned runs in his White Sox debut in Anaheim, then returned to the South Side to twirl a complete-game shutout in the home opener. He took the loss against the Cleveland Indians on Thursday but still went six innings and allowed just two runs, both scoring on a José Ramírez homer.
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Lynn has 27 strikeouts in 19.2 innings of work.
While he be sidelined for at least 10 days, the White Sox are expecting that Lynn will only miss one start during his stay on the injured list. That's relatively good news for a starting rotation that has been rolling of late.
Additionally, the White Sox could use a couple upcoming off days — one Thursday and one the following Monday — to their advantage when it comes to setting their rotation with Lynn sidelined. Should they be forced to dip into their starting-pitching depth early, they could call on Reynaldo López or Jonathan Stiever as a potential fill-in.
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Stiever was brought up as the 27th man for Sunday's doubleheader in Boston, an option to start the second game had the first required heavy bullpen usage. It didn't, and Tony La Russa tabbed Michael Kopech to start, his first big league start since 2018. Kopech, though, was limited to three innings from the jump by the South Side skipper and might not be an option to plug in Lynn's spot in the rotation as a traditional starter, should that be necessary, as the White Sox work the fireballer back from two missed seasons.
White Sox starting pitching has been generally great so far in 2021, with Lynn a big part of why the rotation's 2.61 ERA was the best in the American League as of this writing. Losing him for even a short amount of time will be a challenge, but the emergence of Carlos Rodón and the continued hyping of Dylan Cease should give the team confidence that the staff can keep things afloat.
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