Pregame notes: Healthy White Sox outfielders wanted

That Austin Slater was scratched from the lineup minutes before first pitch on Friday night obviously wasn't good, but major injuries tend to happen in the game more often than outside it.

That Greg Jones was walking in the clubhouse Saturday morning was another poor indicator for one of the White Sox primary free-agent acquisitions from this offseason, but initial word that he was on the taxi squad as the team waited for more information on Slater suggested it was up in the air still for whether a stint on the injured list would be necessary.

As it turns, neither shred of hope was worth clutching to, as Slater has a tear in the meniscus of his right knee.

"Something when he was getting loose before the game yesterday, got himself in a position where he felt a little something in his knee and got evaluated," Will Venable said. "We're still in the early stages of really figuring it out. Not going to timeline on it yet. We know that we've got at least 10 days here."

Venable said he wasn't sure if surgery would be necessary, but paired with Mike Tauchman's Grade 2 hamstring strain, both sides of the White Sox envisioned right field platoon are facing significant IL stints. Newly signed Joshua Palacios is expected to now see the bulk of playing time against right-handed pitching, with Brooks Baldwin mixing in as well. Maybe it's because the first-string outfield of the 2025 White Sox were never as central to the team's success, but it's interesting to contrast the response here to how the 2021 injuries of Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert Jr. were discussed.

"This is what happens in this league, right?" Venable said. "You look around everybody's roster, this is what you deal with in the major leagues. That's why we have guys in the whole organization that we feel good about that can come in and fill in."

"The easy thing to do is to think that you're the team that has bad luck," said Chris Getz. "But if you look around the league and what's happening to starting pitching staffs, pitching in general, injuries to certain players, it happens. That's the importance of building depth in the organization. That's something that we've been prioritizing through this rebuild. When players go down, it's unfortunate. But it is part of the game."

It's a mindset that bodes well more for the long-term than the present, where the White Sox right field platoon has become a guy who cleared waivers two weeks ago and the 2024 Birmingham Barons' Opening Day shortstop.

But since they scored 11 runs Friday night with this group, maybe none of it matters.

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Andrew Benintendi took batting practice on Saturday after doing some agility work with trainers on the field on Friday, and will be eligible to return for the last game of the Athletics series.

Venable said Matt Thaiss didn't have any specific issues from getting hit in the helmet by backswings twice in the final game of the Cleveland series, but the physical difficulty of those nine innings did lead to two-straight Omar Narváez starts.

Omar and Red Sox catcher Carlos Narváez are cousins. They have never played against each other in a major league game, as far as a Stathead search can tell.

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