Team Italy captain Vinnie Pasquantino knew the name Sam Antonacci was on their World Baseball Classic roster, but heading into spring training this year, wasn't aware of any reputation for hit-by-pitches, hustle plays, or on-base skills.
"When he hit that homer against the Cubs and threw his bat all over the place, that was my first awareness of him," Pasquantino said. "Oh we've got a few of these guys who are throwing their bats above their heads when they hit homers."
Fittingly, when Antonacci was called up earlier this month, the first sight of him wasn't baserunning or fielding drills, it was him in the White Sox hitting lab with a Driveline-branded weighted bat, adhering to the team's established schedule for bat speed training, which he had begin working with as early as the offseason.
"Get to use them every other day, three times per week, just trying to get that bat speed up and create more power," Antonacci said. "I'm happy they've established me using them and the outlook on it, and the stats that they have to back it up. So I trust them with that."
Enough trust that Antonacci felt he was seeing benefits before he arrived at Camelback Ranch and saw the numbers behind it. But more to the point, Antonacci had come up with a lower bat speed, higher contact approach, and embraced the idea that he could push that skillset to the side -- at least for a bit.
"Get your A-swing off early and then with two strikes don't be afraid to shorten up and use that contact, but not take that contact approach from strike one," Antonacci said. "Understanding that I still have that low-bat-speed, contact approach that I can pull out with two strikes. We really worked on getting that high bat speed in 0-0 or 2-0 counts, get that best bat speed off."
Antonacci doesn't necessarily feel like he's really gotten going yet, because he's batting .225 with a .216 BABIP, but is already sitting at a 117 wRC+ (overall offense 17 percent better than league average). Part of it is that he's making more contact than any point in his career (90.5 percent), and Antonacci acknowledges that having a quicker bat can work in synergy with trying to see it deep and spoil pitches deep in count.
But more strikingly, four of Antonacci's nine hits have gone for extra bases. His game-tying triple in the ninth was his second in 14 games, and while Antonacci is still a slower, more contact-oriented swinger overall, his last swing registered at 75.9 mph on Statcast -- above MLB's 75 mph threshold for a fast swing.
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It hasn't exactly been smooth sailing yet for Seranthony Domínguez in the closer role for the White Sox, where he's converted seven of nine save opportunities and has a FIP and xERA that are both over 6.00.
But six of Domínguez's last seven outings have gone scoreless, but more importantly, he feels like the root cause of his early season struggles has been addressed.
"I was opening my front side a little bit early," Domínguez said. "It was something with my delivery, I was doing something wrong I think. We took a look and used a couple videos to compare and then found something. After that, we feel way better. It's something that comes up sometimes. Baseball is a long season. There's a lot of things to put together. Sometimes you just get bad habits, doing something that continues to grow. I've just tried to make that adjustment and it's made me feel better."
The White Sox based their belief in Domínguez's potential to be a good closer in their assessment that he had the best pure stuff of any leverage reliever available on the market when he was signed. And they based that assessment heavily on his development of a splitter to combat his career-long issues with left-handed hitters, which teams have been aggressively using against him in moments that have game-changing potential.
But with the Blue Jays run to the World Series last October adding an extra month to his season before pitching in the WBC this spring, a lot of extra high-intensity reps have been added to his workload, which offers a lot of opportunities for his mechanics to slip.
The description that Domínguez used in the immediate wake of the splitter he hung to Christian Yelich for a go-ahead home run in Milwaukee is that he "pulled it," and in following up, he tied that to the issue of his front shoulder opening up in his delivery. In that vein, there's probably no better comparison than the perfectly located one he used to strike out James Wood and seal a victory last week.
If the only thing you can notice is the difference in Domínguez's reaction, well, don't be embarrassed.
"Not really," Domínguez said when asked if the difference was obvious. "It's something I probably could not see. You've got to pay a lot of attention to the details."
There are professionals for this type of thing.
"We've definitely been working on some mechanical stuff," said pitching coach Zach Bove. "We feel like the direction of his delivery on all his pitches; the split definitely, but also the four-seam, even the sweeper and the curveball are all on more of this north-south, linear plane. We were working on that stuff and Seranthony's great with that stuff; the shorter arm action piece, making sure the direction is going to the plate and not so much to the first base side."
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Will Venable has said, and surely many managers before him have said similar, that the first month of the season is spent figuring out what you have to work with in the bullpen. That informs their patient approach with Domínguez, but also maybe towering left-hander Bryan Hudson is part of what they have.
He's not long removed from 62 1/3 innings of sub-2.00 ERA ball for the Brewers in 2024. But the Illinois native has been designated for assignment three times since then -- including once by the White Sox -- which has served to make his 14 innings with just two runs across so far this year feel like an opportunity to exhale.
"Finally able to get some traction and just being comfortable with my teammates, pitch selection and just all those things go hand-in-hand with building confidence out there and allowing me to just out there and pitch," Hudson said.
Hudson missed the last month of the past season with back soreness and spent the offseason focusing on physical recovery. It's what he points to for velocity that has bounced back up a tick to 91.2 mph on average. That might not sound like much, but with his sidearm slot from a 6-foot-8-inch frame, it's played like a dominant offering (27.7 percent miss rate, .182 batting average against), and the White Sox have reiterated as much.
"It's a two-parter, and No. 1 is just convincing him how good of a pitch it was in '24," Bove said. "We're going to lean on that and take some usage away from the two-seamer. But also some slight delivery stuff, make sure he's in good positions and obviously we've seen a little velo tick. It's that 92-93 mph more often than 89-90 mph and that's going to be beneficial. Throw the four-seamer more, trust it. You don't have to throw it to these small locations, throw it to big locations and with the added velo is helping it play up."
Well after midnight Tuesday morning, with the tying run on third base and behind in the count to Adam Frazier, Hudson trusted the four-seamer to beat the barrel to the spot and got his first career save. That seems about as clear of a demonstration of renewed and reinforced confidence as this cruel sport can offer.
"It's huge, right?" Bove said. "Because before maybe he tries to throw it just off, or throw the sweeper or throw the sinker or whatever. But here it is, go attack. He's done a great job of that recently and that's going to be the plan moving forward."
