Cooper: Humber Deserves All The Credit
CHICAGO (WSCR) Phil Humber was supposed to be a band-aid. He was supposed to just hold his own while the Chicago White Sox waited for Jake Peavy to return from the disabled list. But Humber hasn't done what he was supposed to this season, he's done a lot more.
In 11 starts he has an earned run average of 2.87, a 5-3 record and a 0.98 WHIP. He's been so good that when Peavy returned from the DL at the beginning of May, the White Sox went with a six-man rotation rather than move Humber to the bullpen.
"Sometimes the timing is right for guys to just do well, you know," White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper said on the Mully and Hanley Show. "He wasn't ready to give, where he was before, what he's given now."
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After being selected third overall in the 2004 MLB Draft, Humber is on his fourth major league team in six years. The reason he may finally be reaching his potential with White Sox has less to do with the coaching staff, and more to do with the timing that Cooper talked about.
"We did a handful of things, yeah," Cooper said. "But the kid deserves all the credit. I'm given a lot of credit for stuff, I don't need it anymore. I've been doing this a long time. I want wins now, I want wins. You know, that's what I'm in this for, to try and get wins. But the kid, hey, he's just doing all the things you'd want a pitcher to do, and he's doing them for us. You can say that we're either qualified or lucky, you know, that that stuff gets done, but I'm just glad it's getting done on my watch, and hopefully it continues."
