Forgive White Sox left-hander Anthony Kay if his rhythm is a bit off. He has alternated starts and appearances that follow an opener. He has pitched on four, five and six days of rest.<\/p>\n
But when he starts Monday against the Angels at Rate Field, he\u2019ll be coming off a start and pitching on the typical four days of rest. However he enters a game, though, Kay tries to maintain his routine.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018You try to treat it like any other outing,\u2019\u2019 he told the Sun-Times on Sunday. \u2018\u2018You still prepare the same way; you try to do everything the same way. You\u2019ve just gotta time it up. Obviously, [following an opener] is a little different because you\u2019ve gotta time up if we have a long inning in the first. But at the end of the day, you\u2019re still pitching and you still have to get outs.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Kay struggled to do that in his last outing Wednesday. In 3\u2154 innings, he allowed eight runs, eight hits (two home runs) and three walks in the Sox\u2019 11-7 loss to the Diamondbacks. He spoke with pitching coach Zach Bove and assistant pitching coach Bobby Hearn about his issues.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I\u2019m not doing a bad job of getting ahead 0-1,\u2019\u2019 Kay said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty much around league average for first-pitch strikes. It\u2019s the attack after that. A lot of it is me getting 0-1 and then me getting to 2-1 or 3-1. So a lot of it is just attack plan, what I\u2019m doing in the middle of the counts. Just gotta live in the zone a lot and attack these guys.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
That will be a challenge against a right-handed-dominant Angels team that entered Sunday ranked seventh in the majors in runs (137) and eighth in OPS (.731). Kay planned to watch Royals left-hander Cole Ragans\u2019 start Saturday against the Angels, in which he allowed one run in six innings and struck out 11 in a 12-1 victory.<\/p>\n
At least Kay will know when it\u2019s time to take the mound. But at the rate he\u2019s going, he figures to follow an opener again soon.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It\u2019s just getting comfortable with it,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u2018\u2018I\u2019m still getting used to it a little bit. It\u2019s something that they\u2019re gonna use, they\u2019ve used a bunch already, and it\u2019s something I\u2019m gonna have to get used to.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Murray injures shoulder<\/p>\n
Left fielder Tanner Murray left the game in the 10th inning after making a diving catch on a line drive hit by the Nationals\u2019 CJ Abrams. Free runner Daylen Lile scored easily from third as Murray lay flat on the ground. He was escorted off the field and replaced by Sam Antonacci.<\/p>\n
Manager Will Venable said Murray injured his left shoulder and was in a lot of pain. He still was being evaluated.<\/p>\n
New catcher, no problem<\/p>\n
Right-hander Sean Burke had no trouble throwing to new catcher Drew Romo, whom the Sox called up Saturday from Triple-A Charlotte.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It was really good,\u2019\u2019 Burke said. \u2018\u2018It was his second day here. I didn\u2019t throw to him at all in spring training. I thought he did a really good job of talking through some stuff with me [Saturday] and throughout the game today.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Stormy weather<\/p>\n
Threatening weather is forecast for Monday. If the game is postponed, it likely would be played as part of a straight doubleheader Tuesday.<\/p>\n
ON DECK<\/p>\n
ANGELS AT SOX<\/p>\n
Monday: Jack Kochanowicz (2-0, 3.10 ERA) vs. Anthony Kay (1-1, 5.57), 6:40 p.m., CHSN, 1000-AM.<\/p>\n
Tuesday: Jose Soriano (5-0, 0.24) vs. Davis Martin (3-1, 2.01), 6:40 p.m., CHSN, 1000-AM.<\/p>\n
Wednesday: Yusei Kikuchi (0-3, 6.21) vs. Erick Fedde (0-3, 3.42), 12:10 p.m., CHSN, 1000-AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forgive White Sox left-hander Anthony Kay if his rhythm is a bit off. He has alternated starts and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-288722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}