Mitch White endured a rocky outing in the series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals, laboring through five innings of an eventual 6-5 loss for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
White ran into early trouble as Albert Pujols provided the Cardinals with a lead on his solo home run in the second inning. That sparked a two-out rally as a base hit and double put two runners in scoring position.
White didn’t help his cause with a wild pitch, and Andrew Knizner capped off the three-run inning with an RBI single. White went on to give up a solo home run to Nolan Gorman in the third inning, and run-scoring singles to Knizner and Nolan Arenado in the fourth.
One day after the uncharacteristic outing, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the team was reviewing video to determine if White tipped pitches in the loss to the Cardinals, per Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
Roberts acknowledged that the Dodgers were “digging into” whether White might have been tipping his pitches.
“Guys are watching a lot of video and trying to figure it out,” Roberts said.
While it could explain some of his inability to put hitters away after getting two strikes or two outs in an inning, White didn’t necessarily believe pitch tipping was to blame for the subpar outing:
“It’s always a possibility. But I don’t think so,” White said. “I just think yesterday was a case of not being super-sharp. They definitely saw it (his curveball) early and were able to adjust to it, down in the zone.
“I think it’s more a case of me being able to spin the ball aggressively in the zone as opposed to letting them pick it up early whether it was that or the slider.”
Tuesday marked the first time this season the right-hander allowed more than three earned runs in a start. The Cardinals’ 10 hits off White also were the most he allowed this year.
If there was a silver lining, the 27-year-old getting through five innings helped take some burden off a Dodgers bullpen that then unexpectedly had to rise to the occasion after Tony Gonsolin also had a a shorter outing.
White finding rhythm
Prior to the shaky performance against the Cardinals, White had back-to-back starts of just one earned run allowed. He also had been in the midst of a stretch of holding opponents to one run or scoreless in four of six outing.
White attributed the success to being able to find a rhythm by making regular starts for the Dodgers.
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