Pregame notes: A shot at the first White Sox sweep of the season?

The 2025 White Sox have already won three of their last five series and secured at least a .500 homestand, feats of mediocrity that felt utterly unobtainable at so many different junctures last season. But they have yet engineer a three-game sweep since thumping the Angels in the last home series of 2024, and they have yet to sweep the Rangers since 2021.

For such a triumph to take hold, the first iteration of the new Sox lineup against left-handers has to succeed against Patrick Corbin. That includes Austin Slater and Michael A. Taylor being deployed, and the first-ever start for Vinny Capra as a member of the team. It's been a minute.

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The White Sox internal pitch grading model is exceptionally fond of sweepers, to the point that Davis Martin's new slider goes against the grain a bit. It's harder and sharper with less overall movement, leading to Statcast regularly tagging it as a cutter. But the increased chasing and whiffing it is conjuring out of opposing hitters backs up the grip change Martin pulled off earlier this month.

"Metrically it was sweepier and probably read higher than the one he's throwing now at 89 mph," said pitching coach Ethan Katz. "I haven't looked at models for how they look at that, but there's definitely a lot more chase, a lot more swing-and-miss, so I know that pitch for the hitters is a much better pitch than the other one he had."

Martin has allowed three earned runs in 14 innings over his last two starts, each of which set new career-highs for the longest outing of his career.

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Lenyn Sosa is still chasing a lot, but he leads the White Sox (by a good margin) with 48 hits, and has a .308/.328/.477 batting line in May. Until something Andrew Vaughn or Tim Elko-related changes, he will be the team's starting first baseman again left-handed starters.

"Lenyn has special contact ability," said director of hitting Ryan Fuller. "We showed him where he was at, and he's making improvements. That's been really fun to see. With all these guys, the better pitches you swing at, the more likely you are to make contact. When you swing at pitches in the zone and make contact, you're going to hit them at good angles. These guys are smart, and they want to know where they stand and what they need to work on."

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Jonathan Cannon's back is feeling much better Sunday after playing catch on the field. He estimated that he would have pitched on Saturday if he had woken up feeling as good as he does now.

The Sox are currently scheduled to throw Adrian Houser, Shane Smith and Sean Burke at the Mets next week, but Cannon sounds optimistic that he won't have to wait for his next turn, and could make his next start in New York instead.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Rangers

TV: CHSN

Radio: ESPN 1000 AM, WRTO 1200 AM (Spanish)

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