White Sox Minor League Update: July 24, 2022

Oscar Colás has a two-homer game, Jared Kelley struck out seven over 4 2⁄3, and Wilfred Veras hit one 455 feet

Not a great game overall. This wasn’t supposed to be yet another Charlotte bullpen game, but a poor Mike Wright Jr. start turned it into one. At least there were bullpen arms that did well along the way: Hunter Schryver got all three batters out, same with Brandon Finnegan (who struck out a couple of guys as well). Between Schryver and Finnegan, though, Rafael Dolis allowed three more runs and Yacksel Ríos put up two more.

Then again, there was not enough hitting, anyway.

Six hits and three runs were not going to cut it today. Lenyn Sosa’s struggles in Triple-A continued, with an 0-for-4 performance. On the other side, the Knights did get a couple of homers from bigger names. Yolbert Sánchez hit his second Triple-A homer, a two-run shot.

Adam Haseley had the other run with a home run of his own in the ninth, just to make it a more fun five-run loss instead of six.

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The Barons, thanks to Oscar Colás’ two homers and fantastic pitching, get a well-earned win.

Colás is having the time of his life in Birmingham, it seems. He has a .458/.500/.917 slash and 1.417 OPS in his first six Double-A games, pretty Luis Robert-like. Colson Montgomery had stolen all of the headlines because, well, he got on base for two months straight. Colás was and is still on fire, as he climbs prospect ranks as well; and hey, he is a bit closer to MLB than Montgomery, too.

JJ Muno does deserve some love for today as well, he capped off the four-run fourth inning with a solo shot. He also had an RBI single earlier in the game.

On the pitching side, where it was more of a group effort to win. Chris Blewett got the start, and his only blemish was an unearned run off of a DJ Burt fielding error. Other than that, Blewett was great, with five strikeouts in five innings. Félix Paulino took over after that, and did get into some trouble in his two innings, but at this point the bullpen was not allowing anybody to score. Theo Denlinger ended the game with a three-up and three-down performance, all via strikeout.

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The Winston-Salem pitching was close, but not perfect today. Tommy Sommer, who started the game, walked four over 4 ¹⁄₃ innings but somehow only allowed two runs, and Chase Plymell struggled enough in his five outs to allow one run after Sommer was lifted — but that was it for runs allowed, three. The latter half of the bullpen tried its very best to keep the win in its sights with Everhett Hazelwood, Luis Moncada, and Cooper Bradford throwing zeroes in the last three innings.

The problem was the offense ... well, eight of the guys in the lineup, at least.

Ben Norman was that lone bat to provide spark today. He had two hits on the day, the only hitter to reach base twice. One of those was his fifth homer in High-A.

The rest of the lineup went a combined 3-for-29 and drove in the other of the two runs. Luis Mieses did that, with his 30th double this year. Miese is still much better than he was before the 2021 season, but he has not taken that next step yet — converting a few more of those doubles to homers. He needs to pull the ball and hit it in the air more often to do that, improving on a 48% ground ball rate.

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A butt-kicking in Kannapolis keeps the Cannon Ballers in the second-half division lead, off the backs of familiar names like Jared Kelley and Wilfred Veras.

Kelley keeps getting better and better as the season goes on: His 4 ²⁄₃ innings and just one run allowed lowers his ERA to 3.47 on the year, looking much more like a second round pick. Walks are still an issue overall, but it was just two today against seven strikeouts.

Veras hit his 15th homer today, along with a couple other singles. His three hits were some of the 14 the lineup had today, as Kannapolis reached base 20 times.

To make sure he still had the team lead by himself in homers, DJ Gladney smacked his 16th later in the ballgame, a grand slam to top off the victory.

Veras and Gladney both led the team in hits today. Another top prospect, Wes Kath had a single and a couple of walks, pretty much a typical day for him at the plate.

Hunter Dollander did not need to be as good as he was after he relieved Kelley, but he was a great bulk guy. He went 3 ¹⁄₃ innings with six strikeouts, his best outing of the season.

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Both rookie league teams were off on Sunday, but Loidell Chapelli Jr. was the starting second baseman in the DSL All-Star Game. He led off the third inning and flied out to left, and in the fifth he tripled to center field and then scored on a single. He ended up 1-for-2 with a run scored in the 6-6 All-Star Game tie.