BALTIMORE — The titles and roles have been fluid in White Sox manager Will Venable’s bullpen.
He named Seranthony Dominguez his closer in spring training, in case the right-hander’s two-year, $20 million free-agent signing didn’t announce that itself.
But all season, Venable has played the matchups in high-leverage situations regardless of the inning or save opportunity, often turning to flame-throwing reliever Grant Taylor in the biggest moments but also showing faith in lanky southern Illinois native Bryan Hudson.
Now, after a tough month for Dominguez with a pair of blown saves against division rivals, Venable is taking the Sox’ big-money reliever out of the late-game equation — for now, at least.
The 31-year-old veteran, who played in the World Series last season for the Blue Jays, pitched a scoreless sixth inning in Sunday’s loss to the Royals, the earliest he’d entered a game this season.
Venable called it “a little bit of a lower leverage spot to get him back on line, and obviously he did a great job.”
“It’s just a little bump in the road, but we are not worried about titles or changing roles,” Venable said. “It’s about getting him in a good spot and getting him back on line.”
The second-year manager told Dominguez last week that he’d be seeing earlier action in lower-pressure situations to get back on track, after Dominguez blew his fourth and fifth saves of the season on consecutive days against the Tigers and Guardians.
The first outing of his reset went well enough, with Dominguez giving up a single and striking out two, including All-Star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. to end the frame.
“It made me feel good, because the things that I’ve been working on got a good result,” said Dominguez, who is taking the demotion, however temporary, in stride.
“It’s part of the game,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to step down a little bit and step up again.
“Every time they give me the baseball, I just try to go up and focus on doing my thing and trying to get the best result that I can. My confidence is there. It’s just like sometimes things don’t go the way you want, and I’ve got to find the way to help the team win,” Dominguez said.
He’s 3-3 on the season with a 4.30 ERA and 12 saves in 32 outings, with 16 walks and 35 strikeouts.
“He’s had a rough go, but he’s also had this before,” Sox pitching coach Zach Bove said. “Sometimes when he falls behind, it’s not that he’s going to get hit hard multiple times in a row, but it’s the walks. It’s the falling behind counts and giving guys opportunities. So I think that’s been the message recently, is hey, just free him up, attack the zone. Your stuff is really good.”
The Sox are also looking for more consistency from the long, winding arm action that powers Dominguez’s 97 mph fastball and sinker.
“He just has a ton of variance in his delivery,” Bove said. “Those guys are just tough to shrink them in zone, get his misses more in the zone… The past couple days, we’ve had a good work week on that.
“We still have 100% trust in Ser, but what’s the best time to get him to get some positive momentum going?” Bove said.
While Dominguez aims to rediscover his form in lower-stress situations, Venable said “I don’t think that really changes the calculus” on the Sox’ usage of Taylor, their Swiss-Army-knife in the back of the pen, or Hudson, who has notched three saves.
“We’ve just been consistently trying to find the right spots for each one of these guys and find the path to winning, and that looks different every night,” Venable said. “In Grant’s case, we’ve seen him pitch in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth inning. Nothing’s going to change for those guys.”
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
