White Sox Minor Keys: May 29, 2026

Hagen Smith turned in his best start of the season on Thursday, allowing just four hits and a walk over five innings while striking out seven. Smith hadn't shown that sort of control since the first week of the season, which allowed him to reach five innings for the first time in 2026, throwing a season-high 82 pitches.

Talking to FutureSox's Jeff Cohen on Friday about what worked, Smith cited a raised arm slot.

Arm angle would be the best way to tell how significant of a change this is, but Triple-A Statcast systems have missed some games with that metric, including Friday's. You can see a difference in his average vertical release point, though:

• May 3: 5.02 feet
• May 9: 5.07
• May 15: 5.02
• May 21: 5.06
• May 27: 5.16

And there's also evidence of steadier fastball velocity. He still averaged 94 mph in his third and fourth innings of work on Thursday, up a tick from his previous outing.

Smith's had a few occasions over his professional career to date where it'd seemed like he'd turned a corner, only to suffer a relapse with control, but at least this gives us something concrete to track, as it'll take an n>1 in order to determine if there's any correlation between arm slot and success.

Charlotte 12, Jacksonville 4

• Braden Montgomery was 1-for-2 with a double, three walks and a stolen base.
• Jacob Gonzalez homered, doubled, singled and struck out before being lifted in response to Munetaka Murakami's injury.
• Austin Hays played left field for seven innings and went 2-for-5.
• Junior Pérez wore the golden sombrero during an 0-for-5 night.
• Duncan Davitt: 4 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR, 37 of 65 pitches for strikes.

Pensacola 3, Birmingham 2

• Samuel Zavala went 1-for-4 with a double and a walk.
• Colby Shelton went 1-for-4 with an HBP and a double.
• Anthony DePino, 1-for-3 with an HBP.
• Jeral Perez was 0-for-2 with two walks and a strikeout.

Rome 3, Winston-Salem 2

• Kyle Lodise went 1-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base.
• Caleb Bonemer was 0-for-2 with two walks and a strikeout.
• George Wolkow went 0-for-3 with a sac fly.

Augusta 8, Kannapolis 1

• Abraham Nunez went 1-for-4 with a strikeout.
• Matthew Boughton was 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
• Jaden Fauske, 1-for-4 with a K.
• Alexander Albertus went 2-for-4.
• Rylan Galvan struck out in his only plate appearance.

ACL White Sox 6, ACL Dodgers 3 (7 innings)

• Nick McLain played right field and went 1-for3- with a strikeout.
• Landon Hodge walked once and struck out twice.
• Jose Mendoza went 1-for-3.
• Yordani Soto homered, walked, struck out and stole a base.
• Eduardo Herrera was 0-for-2 with an HBP, a strikeout and a CS.
• Christian Gonzalez, 1-for-2 with an unsuccessful stolen base attempt.