Education in Dallas Keuchel clothing studies from the University of Arkansas is very helpful.
Important when you play for the White Sox.
Please keep your applause.
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But seriously, folks, Keuchel unleashed a bit of his fashion experience after touring five exhibition baseball innings against the Cubs on Monday night. After all, in his 2020 action against a different team than his, he didn’t have the mint green glove he’s been wearing since spring.
Where was it? Basically, it didn’t match. So he chose something called “black crocodile,” which is an incredible name for anything and sounds like the title of the next billion-dollar action movie franchise.
“I could throw (mint green) every now and then,” he said. “I had specified that black crocodile glove that I wore tonight before the mint, and that was the plan, to pitch with the black just for my cleats. I have a little yellow volt on my studs, if you notice. I didn’t want yellow and mint green to collide, that’s really my main concern.
“I got a little color coordination.”
What’s also lining up well, in Keuchel’s mind, is this White Sox team, who put together impressive back-to-back exhibits in a couple of exhibition fights with rival Crosstown. After a beating in the middle of the game that ended in a fifth inning of the fifth inning on Sunday night at Wrigley Field, the White Sox offense hit Yu Darvish in the first inning on Sunday night, Eloy Jiménez again home run against his old organization, this time doing it with the Bases full.
While the great salami would surely lead the highlights, Keuchel was quietly excellent. In a style that White Sox fans will recognize as similar to a certain pitcher who wore No. 56 of yesteryear, Keuchel allowed just one hit in five innings. He got a lot of ground ball outs and kept the Cubs’ offense at bay the same way he did with his own teammates when he pitched during the in-school season.
It’s that kind of combination of pitching and hitting that usually fuels playoff runs, and it’s what makes the White Sox dream big before the 2020 season, which begins Friday against the division’s rival Minnesota Twins.
“Our lineup is as good as any in baseball,” said Keuchel. “We only have a lot of young boys who need to try some things, or try some things again, to get some credit on the street.
“It helps the pitching team a lot because a long, crooked number in one inning is what is needed for many young guys. (Lucas) Giolito, he’s going to help, (Dylan) Cease, whatever. I mean it helps me, and this is not my first round.
“The way we balanced the bats in the last four or five games, going back to our intrasquads, has been a promising demonstration.”
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If anyone in that White Sox clubhouse knew, it’s Keuchel, who came to the South Side with a full resume that includes a Cy Young Award, a closet full of Gold Gloves, and most importantly, a Series ring World. With so much youth on the list, Rick Hahn’s offseason additions did more than just plug holes and improve on certain positions, adding winning insights.
Keuchel has it from his days, from rebuilding to October glory with the Houston Astros, and is seeing some similarities with his new team.
“One of the things that really piqued my interest before I signed here was the fact that young weapons had stepped forward,” Keuchel said last week. “Obviously, you have to take many steps forward to be a household name, but where the team was last year and I saw many improvements over the previous year, from ’18 to ’19, I saw many Astros with (Carlos) Correa, (Alex) Bregman, (José) Altuve.
“It reminded me a lot of that squad. I think they may be as good as those guys, but it will take a lot of hard work. I see a lot of that team on this team. “
Keuchel’s winning experience also includes a two-month season with the Atlanta Braves last season, a young team that won the National League crown from the National League, only to be overshadowed when their division rivals, the Washington Nationals won the World Series. But that team was also and continues to be loaded with young talent.
A little more experience that Keuchel brings to the White Sox could serve him well in this strange season. He sat for the first two months of the 2019 campaign, recruiting selection compensation laden with any free agent deals he would sign preventing him from getting a job until June, when the Braves finally signed him up after the draft.
Now that the COVID-19 pandemic and unsuccessful negotiations between Major League Baseball have sunk the months of the 2020 season, Keuchel finds himself in a familiar situation as the rest of the league ventures into unfamiliar territory.
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“It has been a rare two seasons,” Keuchel said at the beginning of the camp.
Fast forward to Monday night, with Keuchel looking stellar on the mound in one of the White Sox ‘final tunings before things come to fruition, and one wonders where his body is now compared to the start of his brief tenure with the Braves in late June of last year.
He seems to be in better shape and definitely a little more relaxed.
“I think the most important thing was the level of stress because I was not with a team. So if something happened where I was, an abnormal injury or something bad went wrong, that would have been crippling for me as a player, ”he said Monday. “The only thing is that there was a lot of stress on me every day because the longer I stayed there, the more I pulled, the more the risk of injury could have happened.”
“I just felt that these past three months with this organization, the athletic team that we have here, the training staff is top notch. It rivaled Atlanta for the quality of care and the level of stress was nothing. That made everything so much easier. “
The White Sox hope everything will be so easy for Keuchel on Saturday, when he is expected to make his regular season debut against the Twins, as they have been his last outings during intrasquad and exhibition action. It sure made it sound easy, anyway.
One thing is for sure, it will make it look good. I would not expect less from the study of clothing with the “black crocodile” glove and the “yellow volt” on its studs.
He will keep things sharp, not too loud. But he expects the White Sox to make a lot of noise.
“If we can get off to a good start, if the bats can swing it like we know they can now swing how deep our lineup will be,” Keuchel said at the beginning of the camp, “then I think we could cause a little chaos. in Central AL “.
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