After the Mariners outlasted the Tigers over 15 innings in their Game 5 to set the matchup with the Blue Jays in the ALCS on Friday, the Brewers took care of business in a still-tense-but-far-more-efficient manner
Andrew Vaughn hit the second of those solo shots in the fourth inning to put the Brewers ahead 2-1, and five scoreless innings from Jacob Misiorowski and three Milwaukee relievers would've allowed it to stand up even without insurance.
Though Vaughn contributed a pair of crucial homers in the series to continue his miracle run with the Brewers deeper into the postseason, getting anything interesting out of him remains a challenge, as Kyle Williams was the last one to take a stab at it.
Just like he thrives as a supporting player on the field, his presence also helped strenghten the theme of this Andy McCullough article about the Brewers' shorter-than-average roster:
The average big-league hitter in 2025 registered at 72.3 inches, just north of 6 feet, according to Elias. With the exception of Christian Yelich, the 6-3 face of the franchise, no Brewers regular exceeds that standard. Among the players, the lack of height does not go unnoticed, especially when watching [Sal] Frelick, catcher William Contreras (5-10), first baseman Andrew Vaughn (5-10), shortstop Joey Ortiz (5-10), outfielder Isaac Collins (5-8) and third baseman Caleb Durbin (5-7) exit the diamond.
“There are times where we sit on the bench and you look out after they’re running in off the field, and you’re like, ‘Man, we’re tiny,’” veteran pitcher Brandon Woodruff said. “We’re fielding a team that’s tiny. But man, these dudes, it’s just a different brand of baseball.”
The White Sox have fielded their share of height-challenged players even before the Brewers made it cool, although their exploits tended to validate Randy Newman's lyrics with lesser outcomes ranging from "Dominic Fletcher hitting one homer in 72 games" to "Vaughn's White Sox career" to "Andrew Benintendi's White Sox career to date." Now that the White Sox are actively emulating Milwaukee in hopes of maximizing their talent, I wouldn't expect that to change. For instance, it's not hard to read about Caleb Durbin ...
A couple years ago, Murphy visited the Arizona Fall League to watch some prospects. He found himself smitten with Durbin, then a stocky infielder in the New York Yankees organization. “I’m like, ‘Look at that little s—,’” Murphy said. “I just loved the way he played.” [...]
Unwilling to duck out of the box when pitchers threw inside, he led the National League after getting hit by pitches 24 times. His peskiness extended a lineup that finished the regular season tied with the Dodgers for seeing the fifth most pitches per plate appearance. These are some of the, ahem, little things that helped Milwaukee rank third in runs in 2025.
... without thinking of Sam Antonacci, whose maniacal obsession with getting on base would be leading many national pieces about the next contending White Sox team if he somehow managed to be part of it. Perhaps there's more to take away from a Birmingham lineup spearheaded by Rikuu Nishida (5-6), William Bergolla (5-9) and Antonacci (6-0, a relative giant) than initially meets the eye.
Spare Parts
Between Davis Martin trying to get his fellow starters together over the winter at his family's ranch and Colson Montgomery attempting to form something similar for young position players in Nashville, it sure reinforces the idea that the White Sox have problems, but vibes aren't one of them.
Will Venable was once considered the heir apparent to Bruce Bochy in Texas, but once Skip Schumaker joined the Rangers front office in November 2024, two weeks after the Sox hired Venable, the telegraphed future had changed, so Venable probably doesn't have any regrets about leaving when he did.
Speaking of preordained outcomes, it seems like the only thing that would prevent Albert Pujols from becoming the next manager of the Los Angeles Angels is Pujols. It has a similar feel to when the White Sox hired Robin Ventura and reverse engineered a process to explain it, but Pujols managed a team to a championship in the Dominican Winter League last year, so it's not quite as forced a fit.
The omnipresent "AI from Google Cloud" ads linking tapping home plate and mascots with wings to hard-hit rates and stolen bases are easy enough to ignore, but it's a good thing Patrick Dubuque couldn't let them go, because this hits pretty hard, especially since you can replace "Rays-Angels" with "White Sox."
The irony of all this, in this particular instance, is that we never needed random computer-generated trash to scavenge and build meaning out of. We already had Rays-Angels games to do that. Surviving that, finding meaning in it and sharing it with each other, is the whole point of baseball. It’s the whole point of people. To think that computers can do it for us, do the work of fandom, any more than writing our novels and our obituaries, is depressing as hell.
