LOS ANGELES — Michael Kopech gets it. The White Sox lost 101 games in 2023, a modern-era-record 121 games in 2024, and they’re on their second major rebuild in 10 years. They’ve been so bad that it seems like forever since they’ve played meaningful games in September and October.
In reality, they are only four years removed from their last playoff berth, when they won the American League Central with a 93-69 record and lost a four-game AL Division Series to the Astros in 2021.
“I know recent history can make it seem like it was a long time ago, but it feels like yesterday to me,” said Kopech, the Dodgers reliever who was acquired from the Sox in a three-team deal last July 29. “It was my first playoff experience, and I think it kind of set me up to come over here in a lot of ways.”
Kopech’s first foray into October baseball with the Sox in 2021 was difficult to swallow. The hard-throwing right-hander gave up six runs and seven hits in three innings of two games, three of those runs coming in Houston’s 10-1 series-clinching Game 4 win.
But it didn’t leave a sour taste in Kopech’s mouth. If anything, it set the table for his World Series run with the Dodgers last October, when Kopech threw nine innings over 10 playoff appearances in which he allowed three earned runs and five hits, struck out 10 and walked seven.
Kopech threw a scoreless inning in a bullpen game in which Dodgers relievers blanked the Padres on seven hits in a National League Division Series-tying 8-0 Game 4 win, and a one-two-three eighth inning of a series-clinching 2-0 Game 5 win.
He got the win with a scoreless fifth inning in Game 3 of the NL Championship Series against the Mets and threw a scoreless fourth inning in a 7-6 World Series-clinching Game 5 victory over the Yankees.
“It helped me a lot last October, because it wasn’t the first time I had been there,” Kopech said this week. “We play at sold-out stadiums throughout the regular season, but sold-out stadiums in the postseason are a different environment. So I think I was prepared for that a little better.”
Kopech, 29, moved from the rotation to the bullpen in 2024 and was 2-8 with a 4.74 ERA in 43 games when the Sox sent him to Los Angeles for corner infielder Miguel Vargas.
Kopech provided shut-down relief in the final two months of 2024, going 4-0 with a 1.13 ERA and six saves in 24 regular-season games, and he was a workhorse in the postseason.
“I had a really bad start on a team that was really struggling, and I ended up with a really strong finish with the best team in the world,” Kopech said. “I don’t know that I did anything spectacularly different, but I got to be part of something really cool.”
That heavy workload with the Dodgers took a toll, though. Kopech was sidelined all spring by forearm inflammation and opened the season on the injured list because of a shoulder impingement.
Kopech was erratic during a nine-game rehabilitation stint with Triple-A Oklahoma City in May, giving up 11 runs and eight hits, striking out 11 and walking 10 in 6⅓ innings for a 15.63 ERA.
But he did not give up a run in his first eight games with the Dodgers, striking out eight and walking four in seven innings before returning to the IL on Tuesday because of right-knee inflammation, an injury the Dodgers say is minor.
Kopech has clearly moved on to bigger and better things in Los Angeles, but he said the Sox, who acquired Kopech as a 20-year-old in the 2016 trade that sent ace Chris Sale to Boston, will always hold a special place in his heart.
“I did a lot of my growing up there,” Kopech said. “It’s a memory like some people have of your college years or your high school years. I was super young when I got there, and I was in the big leagues at age 22.
“To think about how different I am now as a person, a pitcher, a player, a family member, a friend, at 29 than I was at 20, it’s night and day. And I think a lot of that is due to how much growth I had there.”