White Sox Minor Keys: Aug. 4, 2022
José Rodríguez has played more games at Double-A than any other level over the course of his brief, ascendant minor-league career, yet he has fewer homers with Birmingham than he’s hit at any other stateside level.
That said, he’s doing his damndest to make up for lost time. Rodríguez hit his third homer in four games on Thursday night, giving him four for the season.
Chattanooga 1, Birmingham 1 | Top 2
— Birmingham Barons (@BhamBarons) August 5, 2022
Lead off blast by Popeye evens thing back up at one apiece💪 pic.twitter.com/1dBoydvh44
Updating the scoreboard, he’s closed the cap considerably, at least in the raw totals:
- Four over 96 Double-A games.
- Five over 29 High-A games.
- Nine over 78 Low-A games.
- Nine over 44 ACL games.
His season line remains a disappointing .265/.321/.381, but given that he’s 21 years old, he only needs to finish his first full year at Birmingham better than he started it. He’s on the right track. Through June, he hit just .260/.304/.332. In the 25 games since the start of July, that line is .292/.380/.481.
Birmingham 6, Chattanooga 5 (11 innings)
- José Rodríguez homered for the third time in four games, going 1-for-4 with a walk.
- Oscar Colás did the exact same thing.
- Yoelqui Céspedes went 1-for-5 with a K.
- Weird line for Sean Burke: 3.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 46 of 72 pitches for strikes.
Brooklyn 5, Winston-Salem 1 (6½ innings, rain)
- Colson Montgomery walked twice and struck out once.
- Luis Mieses was 0-for-3 with a strikeout.
- Adam Hackenberg, 0-for-3.
- Drew Dalquist: 3 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 37 of 57 pitches for strikes.
Carolina 7, Kannapolis 4
- Wes Kath singled once and struck out four times.
- Wilfred Veras was 1-for-5 with three strikeouts.
ACL White Sox 4, ACL Royals 3
- Brooks Baldwin went 2-for-5 with two strikeouts.
- Romy Gonzalez wsa 2-for-4 with his second homer of his rehab stint.
- Luis Pineda, 0-for-5 with a K.
- Jacob Burke hit his first pro homer for his 1-for-4, walking once and striking out twice.
- Jordan Sprinkle went 2-for-3 with a walk.
- Dario Borrero and Victor Quezada both were 1-for-4.
- Yohemy Nolasco: 4 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K
Highlights:
*Here’s Burke’s blast:
DSL White Sox 2, DSL D-backs Red 0 (5 innings, rain)
- Ryan Burrowes went 0-for-3 with a K.
- Loidel Chapelli was 0-for-2 with a walk, strikeout and stolen base.
- Carlos Jimenez did the same without the stolen base.
- Ronny Hernandez singled and walked.
Charlotte vs. Gwinnett, PPD
Rodriguez’s last 25 games are encouraging. He is age appropriate if not a little young for a prospect at AA. Is the stolen base speed/technique real or a by product of weaker catchers at the AA level and pitchers who may lose focus of base runners?
Be interesting to see if anyone out of the Sosa, Rodriguez, Romy Gonzalez group becomes a quality starter at the mlb level.
Also is it just me or are the bulk of whitesox starting pitching prospects given the kid glove treatment to the extreme? Is this how other organizations operate too? Thompson, Dalquist, Kelly, Vera do these guys ever go more then 3 to 5 innings?
I’ve been wondering the same. I don’t think I’ve seen a pitcher go more than 70-75 pitches regardless of their results.
Stolen bases have exploded in the Southern League (and a couple other leagues I checked), and I’m thinking it’s a consequence of the pitch clock:
2021: 679 SB, 299 CS over 902 G
2022: 936 SB, 284 CS over 778 G
And that is from the current rosters that were not optimized for the speed game. Can imagine the numbers jumping further if teams redirect resources to base stealers
Have any of the leagues started imposing limits on pick-off attempts?
Any chance they might call up Colas for a cup of coffee before the season ends? Vaughn never spent any time above A ball before getting his shot. I half wonder if Colas might do OK, he would immediately be a defensive upgrade in RF. He is a lefty hitter, although unusually his splits favor him hitting LHP so far.
Anyway he seems like he might be the Sox answer in RF eventually if all goes well, with his plus glove and lefty bat, exactly what they need. I hope so. Since they’re too dumb and cheap to sign one.
I mean, why not? They should do it now just considering how bad our RF defense has been, as you said. He’s almost 24, he’s had success in Cuba and then a few Japanese leagues before coming here. Just bring him up and see what he does. This team needs a shot in the arm.
Yeah, esp when you bring up his age, it’s not like he’s 20. He’s killing it enough at AA, why not bring him up when he’s hot? This team needs some life, that’s for sure. And some defensive upgrades.
Our OF offense and defense have both been bad, so he wouldn’t have to even do that well to be an improvement.
The Sox FO typically takes a hyper-conservative approach: wait until you know he’s absolutely ready and then only bring him up when you know he’ll stay for good. But Lenyn Sosa is certainly an exception, so maybe they’re open to a more aggressive move like this?
But it’d only be for a September callup, I think. And, even then, I wouldn’t expect him to play much at all. Maybe he can earn more playing time if he crushes it? But I’d be surprised if he got more than 20 PAs in the bigs this year.
With only 2 callups available and one certainly to be a pitcher I’m not sure Sosa is even in consideration. Whoever it is will most certainly be chosen for his ability to help the team in the stretch run. My guess would be Haseley or Burger, maybe an outside shot for Carlos Perez depending on health.