Carlos Rodon's Start Was An Amazing, Confusing Mess

White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodon, making just his fifth start of the season after a lengthy DL stint, took on his team’s cross-town rivals at Wrigley today. Sox fans, I have good news and bad news.

The good news: Rodon struck out 11 in just four innings, or almost literally as many batters as possible. For at least some Cubs hitters, Rodon was completely unhittable, and the Ks got so bad that Kris Bryant even caught his first-career ejection for arguing balls and strikes. The only imperfect out came when Albert Almora Jr. hit a fly ball to right field in the third.

The bad news: when that flyout came, the Cubs were already winning 4-2. Yeah, those strikeouts were astounding, but Rodon also walked three, gave up seven hits, and got tagged with four earned runs, including a three-run dinger from Willson Contreras.

Bizarrely, Rodon was also the only man giving the Sox any offense today, hitting a two-RBI double deep off the ivy that cut into the Cubs’ lead. As of the eighth inning, those are still the Sox’s only runs on the board.

Rodon exited after throwing 98 pitches. He’s in line for the loss, and has more strikeouts than anyone else ever in a four-inning outing. Basically, everything good and bad that happened at Wrigley today was because of him.