Pregame Notes: It’s Tim Time

At the tail end of the 2021 season, Jonathan Cannon's Georgia Bulldogs were facing Ole Miss for a must-win game with a spot in Regionals on the line. Cannon was scheduled to start the season finale the following day, but as the game tightened late, he was told to head out to the bullpen and prepare to keep Georgia's postseason hopes alive.

Cannon arrived to the pen just in time to see a fateful blow from Tim Elko sail well over his head.

"He hit it into Charlie Condon areas at the park in Georgia," Cannon recalled of how he first encountered his now close friend. "I was like 'This guy is on one knee. This is crazy.'"

Elko's many star turns in college, including playing on a torn ACL in 2021, earned him a statue in Oxford, MS that Cannon has traveled to see in person. But the regard he walks into the White Sox clubhouse with, to the point where Cannon drove him to Rate Field on Saturday, has come from grinding his way up to the majors from the sweltering origins of the Arizona Complex League.

"From what he's been through with the ACLs in college, being drafted for hardly nothing and just coming and putting his head down and working every day, it's really special to see guys make it after going through that," said Brooks Baldwin, who followed a similar path after toiling with Elko in the complex league in 2022.

"if you ask guys around the clubhouse, there is a little bit more respect for the guys that kind of grinded their way here," Cannon said. Davis [Martin] is one of those guys. Guys who get [selected] later in the draft or just teams take a chance on and they just grind it out. Maybe they have to go out and earn a lot of those early opportunities, and they've just got to perform well."

Elko's parents were actually on the road to Charlotte, preparing to be together as a family for Mother's Day, when their son first called with the news of his call-up. The reaction was muted, albeit for work-related reasons.

"I called my dad and he was kind of like whispering," Elko said. "I'm like, 'Is mom there?' He's like, 'Well, she's on a work call right now,' so we had to wait a couple minutes."

Elko is batting eighth and starting at first in his debut, and Will Venable said both Andrew Vaughn and Miguel Vargas will stay in the rotation for starts at that spot. But he also tried to speak pretty clearly about Elko being in line to get regular at-bats.

"He’s going to be in there," Venable said. "We want to see what it looks like and obviously excited about the potential offensively and defensively and he also makes a huge impact in the clubhouse. He’s going to be in there and excited to see it."

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The sore right shoulder that knocked Chase Meidroth out of the lineup on Friday was serious enough to prompt some imaging to be done, but has also responded well enough to treatment to play Saturday.

"He dove on a play the last game in Kansas City, woke up in the middle of the night with some soreness," Venable said. "There was some imaging on his shoulder. He’s fine. Just soreness from the dive, and got him moving around today and felt good enough to go ahead and put him back in the lineup."

Luis Robert Jr.'s absence from the lineup is prompted by what Venable said is a sore right knee.

"Day-to-day thing, we expect him to be available though," Venable said. "We have a couple of guys banged up. Kind of what you would expect being at the end of a stretch were it’s been 26 [games] out of 27 [days]. Really dense part of the schedule here where these nicks and bruises are part of it. It’s more one of those then anything we are really concerned about."

So in other words, there's a real need for Elko's bat here.

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Three days after selecting his contract and adding him to the 40-man roster for the second time this season, the White Sox designated Nick Maton for assignment for the second time this season to clear a roster spot for Elko. Maton entered into the eighth inning of two separate losses to the Royals, and went 0-for-2 with a strikeout in his second stint on the roster this year.

The Sox also released Greg Jones to open room on the 40-man roster for right-hander Yoendrys Gómez, whom they claimed off waivers from the Dodgers. Gómez, 25, has been bouncing around, DFA'd by both the Yankees and Dodgers this season alone. His velo has backed up into the low-90s from his best prospect days, but has enough talent for spinning breaking balls that some woebegone rebuilding team was bound to give him a shot. Might as well be this one!

Gómez has not been assigned to a roster yet.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Marlins

TV: CHSN

Radio: ESPN 1000 AM, WTRO 1200 AM

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