Anthony Kay’s confidence never wavered after a slow start to the season.
“I’m here to do a job and they know I’m capable of doing it,” the Chicago White Sox starter said Thursday. “You have to keep that confidence and keep stacking good days together and making good things happen. Make some changes.
“Thankfully we made some good ones to get right on the mound and put together some good results.”
The left-hander is 3-0 with a 1.98 ERA, .227 opponents average and 24 strikeouts over his last five starts. Kay is scheduled to pitch Saturday against the Detroit Tigers at Rate Field.
“He’s made his adjustments,” manager Will Venable said Thursday. “He’s somebody that’s had to do that, going overseas (spending 2024 and 2025 pitching in Japan) and then coming back. It’s something that’s not foreign to him.
“It’s nice to see him go to work, make these adjustments and get some results on them after what wasn’t maybe the best start that he had the first couple of outings. Really cool to see that his hard work is paying off.”
Overall, Kay is 4-1 with a 3.96 ERA, 39 strikeouts and 23 walks in 52 1/3 innings. He has hit 10 batters.
In his first six outings, Kay had a 6.12 ERA, allowing 17 earned runs in 25 innings. In his last five starts, he allowed six earned runs in 27 innings.
He said helpful conversations with pitching coach Zach Bove centered on “early counts, what pitches I was throwing.”
“A lot of pitches weren’t in the zone,” Kay said. “We needed to work on sequencing a little bit and figure out what will help me get into better pitcher counts, 0-1, 1-2, 0-2. That was probably the biggest thing for me.”
The plan has worked for Kay, who spent time with the Toronto Blue Jays (2019-22), Chicago Cubs (2023) and New York Mets (2023) before pitching for the Yokohama BayStars in the Japanese Central League.
He signed a two-year deal with the Sox in the offseason and said his takeaways from the first two months include “just knowing I can do it.”
“There was some doubt if I could do it in the big leagues,” Kay said. “The last month I’ve shown that I’m capable of belonging here and being a good pitcher here.”
Kay also is enjoying bonding with his teammates, including jokingly giving his fellow starters a hard time after they have a strong appearance.
“Just try to keep things light,” he said. “(When they) have a good outing (I’d say), ‘You go six (innings), why didn’t you go seven?’ Just trying to bust them around a little bit. Keep them humble and make sure everybody is still getting better every day and grinding through it.”
Jordan Leasure placed on IL
Reliever Jordan Leasure went on the 15-day injured list Friday with a right flexor strain.
“Warming up (Thursday), didn’t feel great, and then going into the game (in the seventh inning against the Minnesota Twins), right off the bat didn’t feel very good,” Leasure said. “I always try to push myself. I feel like I’m the last guy that would want to say something and pull myself out of the game and put someone else in a position to have to go in right there.
“So I try to compete through just about anything, but coming off the mound I told Will that something didn’t feel right. Just wanted to get it checked out. Obviously it’s kind of frustrating and kind of sucks the way the season’s been going for me. Hopefully this will give me some time to strengthen everything and get back.”
Leasure has a 6.27 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings over 18 appearances (one start) this season. He was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte on May 7 and returned on May 23.
“Some soreness in his elbow that he’s felt at times throughout the year, and then really felt it yesterday,” Venable said before Friday’s game. “There is a flexor strain, eight to 10 weeks where we’ll shut him down and hopefully get him to a spot where we can build him back up.”
In the corresponding move, the Sox recalled reliever Tyler Gilbert from Charlotte.
