White Sox Minor League Update: June 25, 2023

Who doesn’t love wins, even if they induce heart attacks (looking at you, A-ball)?

A reminder, we are tinkering with how we present the Minor League Update. By incorporating a lot of Statcast data to enhance the game understanding — even down to the Low-A level — we feel we can’t help but improve what we’re doing. Your feedback in the comments is always welcome.

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Gulp, this was just an atrocious series finale for Charlotte, as almost nothing went right for the team from the jump — and in no aspect of the scorigami, 19-7 drubbing. Nate Fisher was mugged for six runs (three earned) in just two innings, and six of eight Knights arms were touched for at least a run in the game. One bright spot continues to be Oscar Colás, who homered again and also threw out a runner at home plate.

Despite the blowout final score, things were relatively back-and-forth early, thus there were four swings of .100 WPA or more in the game — all in the first third of the game.

We’ll focus the pitching spotlight on Jimmy Lambert, who had another poor outing as he recovers from injury:

As we move on to the polls, here are your various game leaders:

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Cristian Mena continues to solidify himself as the next-up starter in the White Sox organization, in spite of the stops-and-starts that come with some of his efforts of late. He misses bats — eight Ks and a (second-best in Double-A on Sunday) 18 whiffs in 80 pitches is good evidence hitters can’t handle you! — but is still struggling with missing the plate (five BBs). Mena couldn’t get to five innings for the win, but five arms from the pen and some select offensive outbursts secured the 4-2 Barons win.

Just falling short of this list and triple-figures WPA is a .073 strike-him-out-throw-him-out play that got the first two outs of the game for Birmingham, as Adam Hackenberg somehow, as a catcher, both threw down to get the runner (leadoff walk) in a pickle, then ran down to first base to back up the rundown and secured the putout of the runner.

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What a crazy-fun game this was, with the contest running much tighter for eight innings than the 11-6 final betrays. It was a sloppy mess, with victorious Winston-Salem’s offense running inefficiently and Greensboro’s coming up zero in the clutch. But brusque bats won the day, with a 14-hit Dash attack featuring three apiece from Terrell Tatum, Wes Kath and Ivan González. Andy Atwood got the comeback rolling in the eighth, with a two-run single.

Michael Turner ended up with the GWRBI — on a sacks-packed walk — and then Shawn Goosenberg put a period at the end of the sentence with a follow-up grand slam.

Tristan Stivors — don’t want to say I told you so, but this guy looked like a beast closer from the jump last year — held it down in the ninth after W-S’s wild comeback in the eighth.

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This 11-10 Cannon Ballers win was over very early, as Kanny climbed to a 11-1 lead through six. Oh, wait. Alas, it was not an easy win, as the pen nearly squandered great offensive days from Mario Camilletti, Bryce Willits, Colby Smelley, Wilber Sánchez and another big blast from Tim Elko.

Truly, the CBs pen didn’t really “save” this win, it seems that the clock just ran out on Myrtle Beach.

The lack of big WPA swings in the game betrays the near-death by 1,000 cuts Kannapolis was suffering in the almost-complete comeback from down 10 runs the Pelicans mounted in the eighth and ninth innings.

Also, Elko and Jacob Burke celebrated their promotions to Winston-Salem with the two biggest WPA plays of Sunday’s game!

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Glossary

CSW called strikes plus whiffs
Hard-Hit (HH, HHA for Ps) is any ball off the bat at 95 mph or more
IRS inherited runners-scored
Whiff a swing-and-miss
WPA win probability added measures contributions to the win

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