White Sox Minor League Update: July 31, 2022

Jared Kelley has his best start as a pro, Bryan Ramos hits two homers, José Rodríguez hits his second homer of the season, and all 20 draft choices have signed, plus 10 undrafted free agents

The Sox 2022 draft class, basically, adds up to 30 when you count undrafted free agents, so it’s pretty close to the number of signings the old 40 round drafts were. So far, two guys have appeared in games, 20th round draft pick Ethan Hammerberg and UDFA Ben Beutel, both in the ACL on July 30. Odds are, every one of the 2022 draftees will all start out in the ACL and move up from there, with older players possibly reaching Winston-Salem. On the bad side, some players currently in the organization could be on the outs in the weeks to come.

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Charlotte gets a win and better yet, Kyle Kubat started the game so they did not need a new pitcher every inning. Yep, the Knights used this wild concept of a starting pitcher today. Kubat only went 4 ²⁄₃ innings, but still, that’s a lot longer than they are used to. He set the tone of the night on the mound, with just one run allowed. The bullpen came in for 4 ¹⁄₃ scoreless innings, which was good enough to where the offense only needed to score two runs for the win.

If we skip all the way to the end, the player of the game on the offensive side, Blake Rutherford, drove in the winning run in the ninth.

Mark Payton drove in the first run, way back in the third. On the prospect front for this not-very-good team, Lenyn Sosa went hitless. but Jake Burger did get a single. That was one of the five hits for the Knights, so it wasn’t that easy a thing to do today.

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A poor outing from Emilio Vargas (seven runs over eight outs) dooms the Barons to a deficit they could not make up. Oscar Colás did start the game today in center, and got a single. He had a scare on Friday after getting hit in the back of the head by a pitch, and took Saturday off.

On a more productive front, two guys homered today: Craig Dedelow, his 19th of the year, and José Rodríguez, his second this season — opposite sides of the coin in terms of power. Those were their lone hits of the day, but in Rodríguez’s case anything extra-base hitty is a plus. Yoelqui Céspedes played in right field today and went 1-for-3. The better part was no strikeouts, and if we are looking for anything from him, it is his plate discipline.

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It was close until the final innings, but the Dash get the win as they hope to right their second-half ship. Besides Karan Patel, who struggled to get the final out of the sixth, the pitching was very good. Tommy Sommer started the game and went after the strike zone. He did not walk anybody, while throwing 50 strikes against just 27 balls. However, when he got hit, he got burned, as all three hits allowed were solo homers. The top guy from the pen today was Skylar Arias. He got the four-out save, and struck out three of the five batters he saw.

On offense, it was all Bryan Ramos today; he hit two homers to bring his total to 17 this season. He added a single and walk for good measure. Alsander Womack had himself a day as well, just not as good as Ramos. He hit a three-run homer in the fourth and added a stolen base after a single. Don’t worry, Colson Montgomery reached base today, it was a walk but still, that’s his thing, reaching base just about every game.

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Everything went well for Kannapolis today. The offense scored nine runs off of 13 hits and four walks, while the pitching threw a shutout. A lot of guys did really well to make that happen. DJ Gladney leads the teams in homers now, after two today. Wes Kath had a couple of singles, while not striking out or putting up an error. Wifred Veras even went 3-for-5 today, with no strikeouts and a homer of his own.

If those two are not striking out in a game, you know the offense had a good day. Jesus Valles was really good out of bullpen as well, with three scoreless innings and five strikeouts.

But let’s not get it twisted, the story here is Jared Kelley.

Kelley had the best professional outing of his career today. He went five innings and just walked two while getting eight strikeouts, a new high. He has his ERA down to 3.14 on the year, with the opportunity to get it below 3.00 with his next start. That’s so much better than where he was at last year, and even in the early going in 2022. With Drew Dalquist and Matthew Thompson not making forward progress, it is good to see Kelley starting to look like the second round pick he is.