The Rivalry That Shaped Baseball: Unveiling the Untold Story of Two Legendary Pitchers

As in his first outing, Whisenhunt showed both greatly improved velocity, and velocity that couldn’t hold. Early in his outing, he threw five straight fastballs and averaged 96.7 mph with them. His final five fastballs, on the other hand, averaged just 94.9.

Ultimately, it was a case of nothing quite working for Whisenhunt, other than that early increase in velo. He only threw 28 of 46 pitches for strikes, and his signature changeup wasn’t able to be a weapon. He threw it just nine times, and it resulted in four balls, three swinging strikes, a foul ball, and a double.

It’s early. Not just for Whisenhunt and Birdsong, but also for the pitchers who are performing well. But we’re certainly seeing a divergence in the early goings.

On offense, the Giants — who sent a B-squad to Camelback Ranch — did the bulk of their damage with a White Sox-assisted rally in the third inning. It started when Buddy Kennedy and Jesús Rodríguez drew back-to-back one-out walks. That led to Parks Harber coming through with a big hit: an RBI double. Admittedly, it was a double that was hit right at the center fielder Acuña but, as we’ve seen so many times this spring, it simply wasn’t caught. On the other hand, Harber scorched it at 105 mph, so he deserved some good things out of it.