Pregame notes: With respect, they’ve lost five-straight games

Generally, it seems like the White Sox are better than last year, right?

"It looks like another youth movement is starting to grow in the big leagues," Cardinals pitcher Erick Fedde said of his former club.

That said, after an offensively anemic Texas road trip, the Sox are one loss away from matching their second-longest losing streak of the season, and a home sweep away from matching it. They're 4-19 in one-run games, which is starting to tilt away from being evidence that they're close to breaking through, and tilt toward just being evidence that they're uniquely bad at winning close games.

"You can point to a lot of good things that contribute to you being in a spot where you do have close games, and then things that you need to continue to do a better job of to get over the hump there," said Will Venable. "You look at this past series and just point to maybe our aggression at the plate, runners in scoring position getting some hits. So that'll be a focus as it has been before, and just making sure we're ready to go at the plate and taking good swings and getting ready to go early in the count."

After the Sox drew eight walks in their series-opening win against the Astros, they walked the same amount of times over their final five losses, while striking out 64 times. Venable repeatedly noted that opposing pitchers were aggressively challenging patient Sox hitters, and were only punished with a .331 slugging percentage over those last five games.

So while a lot of Venable quotes can sound like general baseball truisms, there's a specific gripe buried under this one.

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Lenyn Sosa is back from his hip flexor strain and says he feels 100 percent. Surely Ryan Noda sensed he was missing his first base platoon partner, even though he had never met him before.

"I’m 150 percent," said Sosa, making impossible boasts via interpreter. "[I felt healthy] five days ago. But I think it was necessary for me to go to Charlotte and try to find my timing. That’s a key for us to have good results here."

Brooks Baldwin was optioned after striking out in each of his three plate appearances in his weekend-long return to the majors. Asked if he could ever see giving Baldwin the longer runway that his Triple-A performance seems to command, Venable said the lack of currently available runway is the reason Baldwin is in Charlotte.

"He's still a young player, and what he can do on this field and his skill set, he really needs to play," Venable said. "We just don't have that opportunity for him here. He's part of our vision for the future here, and for him to get there and really develop, he needs to be in Triple-A playing."

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Jonathan Cannon threw a bullpen on Tuesday. He's scheduled to throw an extended bullpen on Friday, which would set him up to begin a rehab assignment next week.

Fraser Ellard headed out to Charlotte this week to begin a rehab assignment for his strained lat. But he's just part of a very full dance card for the Knights.

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Venable seemed charmed by Mike Tauchman's surprising performance in American League All-Star DH voting, even if it was making him revisit some past decisions about pinch-hitting him against lefties. The home run in Houston against Josh Hader already had his wheels turning.

"I probably won't," Venable said of pinch-hitting for Tauchman. "Not for a little while here. There's different scenarios that come up, you know, and you do different things for different reasons. I think with him, it's clear that he feels really good at the plate and he's performing extremely well, regardless of the handedness of the pitcher."

First pitch: White Sox vs. Cardinals

TV: CHSN

Radio: ESPN 1000 AM

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