Pregame notes: Mune mania

When the White Sox general manager addresses the media after a winning road trip, powered heavily by the famous Japanese slugger going ballistic and launching five home runs in six games, a lot of the questions are going to be about that.

Chiefly, with so much of the Sox' marketing efforts directed toward a slow build to a brighter future, people want to know if the 26-year-old with 10 home runs by late April is going to be part of it.

"Certainly don’t want to get ahead of ourselves but what he has done so far has been really impressive," Getz said, sidestepping an unanswerable question. "Anyone who is wearing a White Sox uniform, you look at is this someone we want here? Is this someone who is going to be productive for a long time? Age is certainly a factor. That’s part of the equation when you are putting together in the short-term and long-term."

Chances are that Murakami's price and the White Sox's price already lined up one more time in human history than anyone could have predicted, and him hitting like a 170 wRC+ for four weeks is moving them further apart, not closer. But hopefully he'll always remember the place where he first learned how to crush big league fastballs.

"There were concerns with velocity, and with high-end velocity in this league," Getz said. "The one thing that gave us confidence is for one the training methods we were able to provide Mune and other players here and the frequency in which you are facing the velocity. If you don’t have those training capabilities and you are not facing that type of velocity on a regular basis, I don’t think it’s a fair assessment to assume someone can’t do it."

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Austin Hays (right hamstring strain) and Chris Murphy (left elbow impingement) are both heading out to begin rehab assignments on Saturday. Murphy has at least two single inning outings scheduled. Hays has missed 2 1/2 weeks already, but pledged to be on Trajekt once he could to shorten his recovery time. Jonathan Cannon (hip discomfort) sounds like he has one more bullpen session before a rehab assignment of his own, but is much more likely to stay in Charlotte when his is completed.

Kyle Teel was hoped to head out on a rehab assignment in the middle of the most recent road trip for his hamstring strain, but has not been able to return to 100 percent in his running without discomfort.

"We haven’t quite been able to get it to the finish line," Getz said. "There’s always this final stage and threshold that needs to be met before we send someone out on a rehab. We want to be very careful when it comes to Kyle and certainly a hamstring. So, I know that he had a really good day yesterday and he feels good today. So we’ll see how this weekend goes and take it from there."

Without Teel, there's a level of resignation to discussing Edgar Quero's offensive struggles.

"He's been stronger historically right-handed than left-handed and I think he's gotten more at-bats left-handed than at least what he did last year, considering we had Kyle Teel here," Getz said. "I view this as a learning opportunity for him to get more reps left-handed because it's still going to pop up. He's a guy that can be critical of himself and hard on himself, but we're going to continue to throw him out there and continue to help develop his overall game."

To drill down to the minor league level for injury updates, Tanner McDougal is expected to make his next start after experiencing hamstring tightness while covering first base on Thursday night. William Bergolla Jr. remains without a firm timeline for a return from his bruised shin.

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The White Sox haven't announced probable starters beyond this weekend, which is a silly thing to get fixated on or make conspiracies about, but also Shane Smith is making his third start with Triple-A Charlotte on Friday night.

"He’s done well," Getz said. "We tasked him with some drill work in some areas to focus on with his delivery. His body had changed a little bit in terms of delivery, and we just wanted him to get back on track and he’s worked really hard and he’s done pretty well. We’ll see how tonight goes."

Anthony Kay's last outing spiked his ERA to 5.57, but probably the biggest issue is that a combined count of his walks and hit batters (15) is more than his strikeouts (13) through five outings.

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Most questions about the White Sox ABS strategy has produced open-ended answers that traffic in generalities about players using their best judgment, and still gathering information on best practices. But Will Venable did provide one interesting example of a policy.

When Andrew Benintendi hit his go-ahead three-run homer in the top of the ninth on Thursday, the Sox told their hitters not to use their remaining challenge for the rest of the inning, so that Quero and Seranthony Domínguez would have it available for the bottom half of the frame. Venable said the Sox had made such declarations earlier this season as well.

"From Day 1 that was part of our strategy, and probably across the league," Venable said. "I think that's kind of an obvious one."

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Both teams are using openers. Bryan Hudson is opening for Erick Fedde for the White Sox, and PJ Poulin is supposed to give way to both Miles Mikolas and Riley Cornelio at some point. One more thing that's been taken from you in the name of efficiency is looking at the lineup and knowing who is going to pitch in the dang baseball game.

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