A little over two years ago, right-hander Tyler Davis was in independent ball as a two-way player with the Oakland Ballers for their inaugural season.
It was an important experience where his future as a pitcher was solidified, but also far enough away from being the third righty in the bullpen of a first-place major league team that he tries to consciously appreciate his rapid ascent whenever he can.
"It's a special group to be a part of and I thank God every day that I get to be a White Sox," said Davis, repeating a line that's becoming noticeably commonplace. "It's so much fun every day to come to the ballpark and be with this group of guys. I sometimes sit and just enjoy it. I try not to get so caught up in playing baseball and whatnot, and just enjoy this ride and being with this group of guys."
Davis was on the mound to secure the final out in the Double-A Birmingham Barons' final game last season, before heading to the Arizona Fall League and getting an invite to major league camp this spring. Especially after offseason physical training that has his velocity up a tick and averaging 96 mph, Davis thought he had a chance to make the majors this season, but a mid-April promotion from Triple-A Charloote, a steady major league role and securing his first career save at the end of last month is, admittedly, beyond his expectations.
"I feel like I'm like I'm a pretty calm person more times than not, but I felt some, some adrenaline on that save," Davis said. "The ballpark was jumping and the fans get into it. On the third out, everybody's standing up, that was pretty electric. I don't think anything's compared to that so far."
For someone relatively new to both the majors and just full-time pitching, there's a learning curve that's still visible. Davis' strikeout-to-walk numbers (21.6 percent to 11.4) aren't the best. He's been unscored upon in 15 of his 20 appearances, but a few blowup outings have his ERA (4.03) well above his strong expected numbers (3.33 FIP, 2.92 xERA). His secondaries, especially his splitter, are less refined, and drive a visible platoon split (.681 OPS allowed to lefties, .419 to righties).
But the assuring message Davis has received from the coaching staff upon arrival is to trust that his stuff, particularly his super-hoppy, riding fastball (19 inches of induced vertical break with nearly seven feet of extension), plays at the big league level. Hitters are batting just .114 against it with a .205 slugging percentage despite Davis throwing it 60 percent of the time, and no Sox pitcher is generating more value from a single pitch.
In short, Davis is here because he throws absolute gas, and he tries not to let too much get in the way of jogging in from left field and letting it eat for an innings.
"I try not to overthink and overcomplicate everything," Davis said. "These guys are good on the other side. They're in the big leagues too, so I think just trust your stuff, and execute at a high level and more times than not I think I do a good job of that."
OK, maybe there's one wrinkle. Having such a big fastball that can so often act as a putaway pitch, Davis says he's become more comfortable than ever with pitching backwards; landing sliders in the zone early to get ahead in the count against opposing hitters that at this point are stepping in the box trying to gear up for velocity. Relatedly, Davis has a 94th-percentile chase rate despite being fairly far away from perfecting swing-and-miss secondaries.
"Especially with the patient hitters, I love to flip a breaker in there and immediately flip their thought to 'OK, he'll throw the slider in any count,'" Davis said. "The heater late is probably the best pitch I got. I don't know what the numbers say, but I feel good about throwing my slider in any count and trusting it that it's going to do what it's supposed to do, and if they hit it, they hit it."
Finding more comfort with commanding his splitter, or a more swing-and-miss variant of breaking ball, would allow Davis to handle more assignments against left-handers. But like much of the Sox roster, Davis is doing just fine for now, even if this isn't the 27-year-old's final form.
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One element that has helped ease Davis' transition is that working in the 2026 White Sox bullpen hasn't required a huge leap in workload. He only started taking on back-to-back outings at the end of last season with Birmingham, and such is the nature of Will Venable's bullpen management that the Sox have not had any reliever work on three consecutive days all year.
But it's more of a case where the math has never quite worked out for it to register as a good idea, rather than a strict policy.
"We talked a lot about it, we just haven’t done it," said Venable, who revealed that Seranthony Domínguez got close to being used for three straight days at one juncture. "It’s not a hard and fast rule. Just as we evaluate where guys are at, getting feedback from there, what we want to do to protect guys, it hasn’t amounted to three in a row yet."
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Chase Meidroth's bat speed isn't up. His huge clout against Jacob Misiorowski in his first at-bat of the season is still the hardest ball he's ever hit in a major league game (107.7 mph), but was not a huge departure from his 2025 high (107.1). He's already surpassed last year's home run total and slugging 82 points higher than his rookie season mostly, by everyone's explanation, due to increased feel -- and plenty of encouragement -- to unleash more A-swings when he has the opportunity.
"It's just knowing when to take your shots and just playing the game, understanding what they're trying to do to you, what they're trying to throw, when they're trying to throw it there, where they're trying to throw it, just to give you a little bit more of an educated guess on when you should take that shot," said hitting coach Derek Shomon. "He's been great."
His strikeout and contact rates are both up as well, but Shomon insists that didn't delay Meidroth's buy-in much at all. And with Meidroth riding a .280/.351/.402 batting line that's better in every way, it's clearly paying off.
"It’s a long season, so whether it’s working today or not, it’s about the overall year," Meidroth said after launching his sixth home run of the season on Sunday. "[Shomon] talks about that a lot. It’s you’re going to take shots and you’re going to miss. So it’s just never being afraid to fail. He puts us in that spot everyday where we’re prepared to go do our thing. He’s been awesome for our whole group.”
