White Sox Minor League Update: June 26, 2022

The Knights are the odd team out, as the farm goes 3-1 with great pitching up and down the system

Davis Martin is back in Triple-A and back to starting, and it worked out pretty well today. He went four shutout innings with nine strikeouts. Good to be back for him, and maybe he should just be a starter going forward. Jimmy Lambert can be the long reliever call-up.

A fellow 40-manner, Anderson Severino, came in the next inning and allowed three runs, and that is how the Knights got their 3-2 loss. It is not all on Severino, though, because the offense only came away with four hits, and nobody reached base more than once. Logan Glass — a guy who was in Low-A just last week — had the only extra-base hit, so the lineup was not pulling its weight. Eloy Jiménez did play today as the DH, going 0-for-4.

Sean Burke’s second start after his three-week hiatus went just a bit better, although an improvement over one inning and six runs allowed makes improvement pretty easy. Burke went three innings, which might be his limit for a while (he only had 44 pitches). He did get hit around a bit, four hits in three innings is not fantastic, but no walks is always a great outcome. Kaleb Roper was the bullpen starter (is there a term for this yet, besides bulk guy?) and was just as good as Burke. They both rode a five-run first from the Barons bats, so they didn’t even need to be as good as they were.

In fact, the offense was really good overall. Everybody reached base at least once, and six of the nine in the lineup reached at least twice. José Rodríguez and Tyler Neslony led the team with three hits each. Rodríguez’s batting average has steadily improved over time, now at .251 after today’s game — however, his OPS is still a putrid .618. Neslony’s numbers are much better, and he worked a walk in to lead the team in times on base: four. DJ Burt was one of the few players to get two hits, but he was very active on base, stealing three bags on top of his two singles.

A well-rounded win for the Dash, with Andrew Dalquist having one of his better outings of the season. He went four innings — four-inning outings seem to be a little bit of a trend — and his lone run allowed was a solo homer. The command was good overall, with just one walk, but this does indicate he is on some sort of an innings limit because he had only thrown 60 pitches by the time he was removed from the game. The bullpen, obviously, was stellar for the other five innings. Chase Plymell worked more than the rest of the bunch, with 2 ²⁄₃ innings of shutout ball. This was Plymell’s second game in High-A, and he has not allowed a run yet.

On offense, a couple of outfielders who should get promoted to Birmingham led the way with five of the team’s eight hits. Oscar Colás had two hits, including a double, while Duke Ellis went 3-for-4 and was again electric on base with two steals. He even had a pretty good catch out in left:

Colson Montgomery extended his on-base streak to 35 with two walks, but did fail to get a hit. He did make another error; those are starting to pile up.

A great start from Tommy Sommer propelled the Cannon Ballers to a 6-1 victory. They are still a very bad team overall, but there has been some better baseball lately. Sommer has had a pretty good year, and this six-inning, one-run start lowered his ERA to 3.03. If he was more of a potential option on a future MLB squad, maybe he gets the promotion over Cristian Mena. Bowen Plagge took over and was just as good as Sommer, if not better. Plagge got through three innings for the save, (aren’t nine-out saves just awesome?) in what was his best outing of the year.

The lineup got on base 12 times and half of them scored, a pretty good ratio. The strikeouts were way down in this game for Kannapolis, just four of them, so balls were in play for the most part. Wilfred Veras had the big fly of the afternoon, his eighth homer of the season:

Wilber Sánchez had a key double that drove in three runs, providing half of the offense on one two-bagger.