![\"White](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ctc-l-white-sox_c479f4.jpg\")
White Sox starter Anthony Kay celebrates after shutting down the Royals in the fifth inning May 14, 2026, at Rate Field. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\nAnthony Kay\u2019s confidence never wavered after a slow start to the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here to do a job and they know I\u2019m capable of doing it,\u201d the Chicago White Sox starter said Thursday. \u201cYou have to keep that confidence and keep stacking good days together and making good things happen. Make some changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully we made some good ones to get right on the mound and put together some good results.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
White Sox starter Anthony Kay celebrates after shutting down the Royals in the fifth inning May 14, 2026, at Rate Field. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s made his adjustments,\u201d manager Will Venable said Thursday. \u201cHe\u2019s somebody that\u2019s had to do that, going overseas (spending 2024 and 2025 pitching in Japan<\/a>) and then coming back. It\u2019s something that\u2019s not foreign to him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see him go to work, make these adjustments and get some results on them after what wasn\u2019t maybe the best start that he had the first couple of outings. Really cool to see that his hard work is paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n He said helpful conversations with pitching coach Zach Bove centered on \u201cearly counts, what pitches I was throwing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of pitches weren\u2019t in the zone,\u201d Kay said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n He signed a two-year deal with the Sox<\/a> in the offseason and said his takeaways from the first two months include \u201cjust knowing I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere was some doubt if I could do it in the big leagues,\u201d Kay said. \u201cThe last month I\u2019ve shown that I\u2019m capable of belonging here and being a good pitcher here.\u201d<\/p>\n Kay also is enjoying bonding with his teammates, including jokingly giving his fellow starters a hard time after they have a strong appearance.<\/p>\n \u201cJust try to keep things light,\u201d he said. \u201c(When they) have a good outing (I\u2019d say), \u2018You go six (innings), why didn\u2019t you go seven?\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Jordan Leasure placed on IL<\/p>\n Reliever Jordan Leasure went on the 15-day injured list Friday with a right flexor strain.<\/p>\n \u201cWarming up (Thursday), didn\u2019t feel great, and then going into the game (in the seventh inning against the Minnesota Twins), right off the bat didn\u2019t feel very good,\u201d Leasure said. \u201cI always try to push myself. I feel like I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I try to compete through just about anything, but coming off the mound I told Will that something didn\u2019t feel right. Just wanted to get it checked out. Obviously it\u2019s kind of frustrating and kind of sucks the way the season\u2019s been going for me. Hopefully this will give me some time to strengthen everything and get back.\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/a> and returned on May 23<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSome soreness in his elbow that he\u2019s felt at times throughout the year, and then really felt it yesterday,\u201d Venable said before Friday\u2019s game. \u201cThere is a flexor strain, eight to 10 weeks where we\u2019ll shut him down and hopefully get him to a spot where we can build him back up.\u201d<\/p>\n In the corresponding move, the Sox recalled reliever Tyler Gilbert from Charlotte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Kay\u2019s confidence never wavered after a slow start to the season. \u201cI\u2019m here to do a job…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":831093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[197082,960,1274,1885,5386,1818,77516,13250,341001],"class_list":["post-831092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-anthony-kay","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-jordan-leasure","tag-will-venable","tag-zach-bove"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116660479519327891","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}