Carson Fulmer will be promoted to start the back end of a twin-bill on Monday against the Minnesota Twins. Fulmer debuted with the Chicago White Sox in 2016 as a reliever but repeated another season in the minors to see if he could find his calling as a starter in 2017.
Change to White Sox rotation: doubleheader Monday will be Carlos Rodon, then Carson Fulmer. Lucas Giolito bumped to Tuesday.
— Colleen Kane (@ChiTribKane) August 19, 2017
It appears the former Vanderbilt Commodore will get his first shot at a big-league start on Monday despite a mercurial season at Triple-A. The questions on whether Fulmer could be a major-league starter settled on his mechanics. He became known for a frenetic delivery at Vanderbilt and although it carried over to his professional career, Fulmer tamed his histrionics and found early success.
In his latest start on Tuesday for the Charlotte Knights, Fulmer was pulled early after cramps foiled his outing. He survived a rocky first inning and recovered well enough to last five full innings when cramps dropped the curtain on his evening. Yet, the prognosis from manager Mark Grudzielanek was positive.
“He was a cramping up a few innings, probably the end of the third he came in a little tight, worked him out, hydrated him and tried to get him feeling a little better, loosened him up. He looked good in the fourth but it came back after the fifth,” Grudzielanek said.
The Charlotte skipper reassured skeptics that Fulmer would be ready for his next start, saying “Absolutely, he’ll be fine. It was cramps. It wasn’t anything other than that. You get better, you move on and he’ll make his next start and be ready to go like he always does.”
The right-hander posted a 3.52 earned run average in April behind several quality starts. But as the season wore on his ERA crept higher, peaking in June at 6.85. After a rough July, Fulmer has rolled back to effectiveness with a 4.96 ERA in August. Still, his WHIP is still much higher than White Sox brass would like it to be and Fulmer’s control issues could drop him to the bullpen.a
Time will tell whether the former first-rounder can handle a starter’s role and if he eventually joins the relieving cast, it might behoove Fulmer to resurrect his furious delivery. With a fastball that can reach the upper-90s, he could be effective in reliever roles but his splits against right-handed batter aren’t something that screams matchup.
Both right and left-handed batters are consistently blistering Fulmer with a .269 and .268 batting average respectively. The last 30-Days have not been kind to the hurler as opponents have smoked Fulmer to a .298 batting average.
The experiment continues and Fulmer has plenty to prove in his starting debut against the Twins.
