White Sox reinstate Eloy Jiménez from IL in quest for power
After being outhomered 6-1 in a pair of losses to the Minnesota Twins, the White Sox lineup desperately needs power, so Eloy Jiménez’s return for this afternoon’s series finale should be exactly what the team needs.
Unless it’s the Jiménez who was slugging .333 and beating two-thirds of his batted balls into the ground before he injured his knee stepping on the wrong side of first base in April.
Either way, Jiménez is starting in left field and batting sixth today, in between Gavin Sheets and Yoán Moncada.
Jiménez is the White Sox’s best hope at putting the ball over the fence on a regular basis, but for as long as that timing at the plate proves elusive, then he’s going to be contributing to the White Sox’s chief flaws — suboptimal batted-ball direction and defense that’s barely playable in left among other things.
And that makes him dangerous.
The White Sox made room for Jiménez on the 26-man roster by placing Jake Burger on the 10-day injured list with a bone bruise in his right hand, and on the 40-man by transferring Danny Mendick to the 60-day IL.
Burger first suffered the hand injury when he was plunked on June 13, and it’s been a struggle for him since. He’s hitting .167/.231/.278 with one walk and 14 strikeouts over 39 plate appearances, and he’s been limited to one plate appearance over the last eight days. With Moncada finally showing signs of hitting the ball with authority, Burger’s ability cover third base isn’t worth rostering in and of itself.
In two other roster moves, Jimmy Lambert is back, taking the place of Vince Velasquez, who moved to the 15-day injured list with a blister on his right index finger. Velasquez had a run of useful multi-inning appearances end abruptly this month, as he gave up five runs over 2⅓ innings in the lowest of leverage.
And we’ll just use this thread as the…
First Pitch
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Lineups:
Leury starting every single goddamn time. Harrison is finally playing approximately like what was expected from him, and Leury is still starting every goddamn game
BUT JUST LOOK AT THOSE ABS
Whoa bro, why are you looking at the results? That’s too easy.
Harrison pitched yesterday so he gets the day off
Watch out Twins, Jimmy Lambert is back!
The ZiPS midseason update is almost shocking optimistic. It sees the Sox and Twins ending the season both with 85 wins, and the Sox as having a much better chance than them to make some noise in the playoffs per winning WS chances.
Maybe they figure the Twins will be playing the Yankees again. How have the Twins done lately in the playoffs? I know it ain’t good
Not well. Apparently ZiPS likes the Sox a lot more in the playoffs than the twins because our rotation is a lot stronger
Yeah, that’s it, I think. But maybe a ghost in the machine registers the Twins’ recent postseason struggles.
That’s not going to be upheld…
Tim…good lord. Pull your head out of your arse.
6th inning blunder too, this guy has sure lost his need for a job.
Tim Anderson shouldn’t have a job? smh
Another defensive miscue
That was almost spectacular from Timmy. ‘Almost’ doesn’t win any prizes
This is why we watch the games. We want to see what wild and crazy thing they do to lose…
Goddamn piranhas!
Will the White Sox get as many walks today as the Twins did in the first inning? I’m saying 3, so just barely.
TA walking is a start. Ball 3 in particular was a pitch TA often swings at.
TV broadcast mentioned that Eduardo Pérez is watching today wistfully reminding me that Jim mentioned Pérez as a possible TLR replacement on a podcast earlier this year.
Do we dare to dream?
Not while Jerry Reinsdorf owns this team
Jigglies be damned. I tuned in today because Eloy is back only to see clown defense in the outfield.
I rewatched both of those Twins hits to the outfield a few times. It doesn’t look like Robert is taking charge or trying very hard on either of them.
Leury mixing things up by grounding into a double play this time
Man, look at that at-bat by Leury. Swinging at the first pitch to roll over into a weak double play. That’s something that observational analytics really likes about Leury.
I think Leury is a poor hitter who has been awful this year. However, I don’t think he rolled over on that pitch. He hit the ball with an EV of 99.0 mph which is hard to do rolling over.
Nice play, Leury, way to stick with it.
Chuck Garfein really doesn’t understand the significance of the Sox leading the league in batting average from the 9 spot…
God Bless Eloy Jimenez
Moncada is so cool. The yellow cleats / batting gloves look great.
I would never throw Zavala anything but a slider.
Is Lynn favoring his knee, or am I imagining it?
This team is really hard to watch. The players refuse to hustle, roberts in the first, the managers love affair with 180 hitters, pitching coaches who continue to call a changeup on a 2-2 count, larussa who looks like he is lost all the time.
Polanco’s homer would’ve been a homer in 15 out of 30 MLB parks.
Robert’s homer would’ve been a homer in 10 out of 30 MLB parks.
Rosenberg sucks.
Thankfully, Luis made that gaffe irrelevant
I played in a softball league once with a field that had a really short right field fence. There was a rule that you were only allowed to hit two home runs per game. I think the Sox have been playing under those rules this season.
Ball’s really flying out of the park today: .260 xBA on Eloy’s homer, .100 (!) on Polanco’s, .390 on Robert’s.
Eloy’s homer would’ve been a homer in 28 out of 30 MLB parks. I think the low xBA for that one is because xBA doesn’t much take into account how close to the foul line the ball is.
Polanco’s homer would’ve been out in 35 of 50 states.
Yeah, xBA doesn’t account for spray angle. Still, a little luck for that HR, not that I’m complaining
Leury grounds weakly to first again. Sigh.
Moncada got a boo boo again.
Leury ‘s having a hell a game.
Eloy!
I remember when baseball used to be played this way
Steroid era?
Garcia strikes out on 3 pitches just to prove that he doesn’t always ground out
You don’t have one more Leury comment in you today?
If the pitching staff could hold the goddamn twins for more than an inning at a time that’d really be nice
Well at least the offense/Twins bullpen is matching them. Remarkably back and forth game
Is this the first time TLR put Hendricks in consecutive non-save situations?
Extend Leury!!!
That would be too cruel even for the real King Joffrey, cut out my tongue instead!
Leury Garcia, noted walk-offer
I enjoyed this game.
Lots happened and the Sox won. (Jim can feel free to use that as the recap headline.)
The Legend continues. Shitty series, but Eloy hitting homers is probably the unfortunate bit of silver lining I need to continue to watch.