White Sox Minor Keys: April 27, 2019

The Birmingham Barons’ losing streak extended to six games tonight, and it’s for the reasons you might suspect — a lack of runs. They’ve scored a total of seven runs over those six games, topping out at two in a game and getting shut out twice.

They’re hitting .235/.320/.330 as a team, which would be awful … OK, it is awful, but there are two teams with worse OPSes. The league as a whole is only posting a .675 OPS, which is 30 points shy of last year.

It also doesn’t help that Omar Vizquel’s team is once again running into a lot of outs. Swashbuckling baserunning was a feature of last year’s Dash team, and the Barons aren’t having as much success with it. They’re just 13-for-27 stealing bases. To put it another way, they lead the league in getting caught stealing while stealing fewer bases than all but Mississippi.

The good news is that Joel Booker still leads the Southern League in hitting, and Luis Gonzalez is starting to find some traction. He’s batting .314/.425/.486 over his last 10 games, raising his line to .238/.319/.363 on the season. The majority of his extra-base hits are triples (three of five). Of course, he’s 2-for-5 on the basepaths.

Indianapolis 9, Charlotte 4

  • Charlie Tilson singled, walked and struck out thrice
  • Daniel Palka doubled, singled, walked and struck out twice.
  • Zack Collins singled twice, walked and struck out twice.
  • Danny Mendick went 0-for-5 with a strikeout.
  • Zach Thompson returned to Triple-A: 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K, 1 HBP
  • Ian Hamilton: 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 1 K
  • Dylan Covey pitched two innings of relief, so the idea of stretching him to start doesn’t seem like a serious one.

Montgomery 3, Birmingham 2

  • Luis Gonzalez went 2-for-3 with a walk.
  • Laz Rivera, 1-for-4 with a strikeout, and was picked off/caught stealing.
  • Blake Rutherford was 0-for-4.
  • So was Gavin Sheets, but with three strikeouts.
  • Micker Adolfo went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
  • Ti’Quan Forbes went 3-for-4.
  • Bernardo Flores: 5 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 1 HR

Winston-Salem 9, Frederick 5

  • Luis Robert struck out four times, but he did deliver a two-run double.
  • Nick Madrigal went 2-for-4 with a walk, and was 1-for-2 on the basepaths.
  • Carlos Perez went 2-for-4.
  • John Parke: 5 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 2 HR, 1 HBP

Kannapolis 12, Rome 5

  • Luis Basabe went 1-for-4 with a walk and a strikeout, and was picked off/caught stealing.
  • Steele Walker went 2-for-5 with a double and two strikeouts.
  • Lenyn Sosa snapped out of a slump by going 2-for-5 with two doubles and two strikeouts.
  • Brycce Bush singled, walked twice, struck out twice and stole a base.
  • Luis Curbelo came up a triple short of the cycle during a 3-for-5 night.
  • Amado Nunez was 0-for-5 with a strikeout.
  • Jonathan Stiever: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 WP
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PauliePaulie

It does not appear that Vizquel learned anything from his embarrassing interview with the Angels.

ParisSox

What’s this story? Google search only gave me the bare facts that he had an interview.

PauliePaulie

A 2 hour written test focusing on analytics was part of the process.
I can’t find the interview where he discussed it (believe it was from NBCSN), but my recollection is that he was totally lost.

ParisSox

Thanks 

Brett R. Bobysud

Booker promoted to Charlotte this morning, with Basabe returning to Birmingham from his rehab assignment in Kannapolis.