Now that he's capped to five innings per start for the rest of the season for workload management, crafty 24-year-old lefty Shane Murphy faces another hurdle to cracking the White Sox major league mix. His wide arsenal-wield, speed-mix, weak contact-oriented style of pitching typically needs to pile up results to earn every promotion.
But even if Murphy is stuck in Birmingham for the year, he and the Barons have a pretty good thing going. They have a commanding 7½-game lead for first place in the Southern League's north division for the second half thanks to winning 19 out of their last 21 games, while Murphy has introduced a sinker and a revamped cutter to pile up 90⅔ innings of a 1.39 ERA against Double-A hitters.
"I've been a four-seam dominant guy coming in when I first got drafted, and I have good ride on my four-seam metrically, so it's a pitch they want me to throw at the top of the zone," Murphy said. "In Winston last year, the numbers weren't great. But I felt like I threw the ball really well, and it'd be a two-run homer, three-run homer. And one day, I was just like, 'Man, I'm sick of giving up a two two-run, three-run homer to ruin my stat line when I feel like I'm throwing the ball well. So I was like, 'What can I do to sprinkle in just give a hitters a different look?'"
With the way he repeatedly acknowledges it as lower than optimal, Murphy's 20.8 percent strikeout rate isn't as anemic as he makes it sound. But he knows the realities of his 89-91 mph fastball and the narrower margins for screwing up hitters timing that his six-pitch mix must work within. Yet after getting a taste of Triple-A last year, Murphy is no less confident that his methodology of relentlessly attacking in-zone (4.3 percent walk rate on the year) will be what carries him through higher levels.
He and fellow soft-tossing lefty Jake Palisch are too similar to not share notes constantly, and after Palisch made a big league debut in June that was the television event of the year in the Barons clubhouse, Murphy is convinced that his next shot at Charlotte or beyond will follow a familiar-looking route.
"Obviously, it's a hitters' league, it's a hitters' park, but that's out of your control," Murphy said. "What's in my control is just locating the ball, changing speeds, pitching my game. So you just attack every hitter, attack every game the same, and you walk out of each outing with something to learn from, something to be proud of."
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As an undrafted free agent out of NC State who has largely been shifted to first base since the White Sox called him an hour after the 2024 MLB Draft ended, switch-hitting 24-year-old farmhand Alec Makarewicz's .315/.390/.534 July slash line at High-A Winston-Salem was an important turn in fortunes.
"Obviously I didn't have the start I wanted to this year," Makarewicz said. "Had a conversation with one of the hitting coaches, after I tried a few things. Kind of got back to what was working for me last year. It just started clicking and was able to put a good month together."
Makarewicz said the conversations centered around being less rotational with his upper body in his swing, and focusing on keeping his direction up through the middle of the field. Because he's a switch hitter, he had to do it twice, but felt it clicked more immediately than any mechanical adjustment he's made in the past.
"Sometimes you work on things and it just creates other problems, so it was great to just get that instant feedback that what I was doing was what I should be doing," said Makarewicz.
Chase rates north of 30 percent are still an issue, even for the White Sox minor league player of the month, and Makarewicz acknowledged that swing decisions will be a career-long focus for him. He struck out 26.8 percent of the time in July, but saw a slight dip in his chasing that lends some hope that a lower-effort stroke is giving him a steadier view of the baseball.
That's a nice theory for us, at least. What Makarewicz likes best about his past month is how little he thought about all that.
"I didn't really realize those were the numbers I was putting up until the end of the month when a few people started posting about it," Makarewicz said. "You kind of get lost in the process. That's what I'm looking forward to keep doing."
DSL White Sox 10, DSL Giants Orange 1 (7 innings)
- Frank Mieses lined out and drew a walk before being replaced.
- Jose Mendoza singled twice, walked and struck out.
- Alejandro Cruz went 2-for-3 with two doubles, a walk and a stolen base.
- Eduardo Herrera, 1-for-3 with a double, sac fly and a strikeout.
- Yordani Soto was 1-for-3 with a walk, a strikeout and a stolen base.
