White Sox Minor League Update: April 30, 2024

Drew Thorpe can be beat, but he can’t not be brilliant

With April now in the books, let’s take a look again at where each team stands:

Chicago White Sox (6-24), fifth place (of five), 13.5 GB, MLB AL Central
Charlotte Knights (13-14), sixth place (of 10), 5.0 GB, Triple-A IL East
Birmingham Barons (15-7), first place (of four), 2.0 GA, Double-A SL North
Winston-Salem Dash (9-13), fourth place (of six), 4.0 GB, High-A SAL South
Kannapolis Cannon Ballers (11-9), third place (of six), 2.0 GB, Low-A CL South

The White Sox are sporting a record we’ve seen throughout the system in years past, but at least every other team in the organization is competitive in 2024.

Charlotte Knights 4, Memphis Redbirds 3 (Gameday Box) (Statcast Box)
Chad Kuhl, due to the inefficiency of the Charlotte starter, took on a bulk relief role and was tremendous for the Knights in a tidy win to start the Memphis series.

With the bats, South Side Sox MiLB Player of the Week Lenyn Sosa and Chuckie Robinson continue to mash.

Dominic Fletcher (1-for-4 with 3 Ks) and Colson Montgomery (.211 batting average and .682 OPS on the season) continue to slump.

Rocket City Trash Pandas 3, Birmingham Barons 2 (Gameday Box) (Statcast Box)
While the trade came too late to have it reflect in our Top 100 Prospects list this year, Drew Thorpe would have slid in waaaaay up top, at No. 2 and just ahead of Noah Schultz. An aggressive placement? Perhaps. But Thorpe has proven just how worthy he is of such faith with a remarkable first five starts of the season.

And that’s said after his FIRST loss of the season, wherein he surrendered two earned runs (gasp!) off of a home run (gulp!) and two other hits (my stars!). He also led Double-A on Tuesday with 22 swing-and-misses, so the Trashies are just lucky that DH Eric Wagaman threw the bat out there and connected for distance.

Thorpe has obliterated Double-A in April and really looks ready to make the jump to Charlotte soon. From there ...

Sad to say, Thorpe got the L in part because the bats behind him were limp: five hits, two walks, just very little traffic with which to mount a comeback.

Speedster Duke Ellis (hell yes he stole another base tonight, quit asking) provided all of the run production, with one swing in the seventh:

Notable: Prior to the start of this week’s series, closer Eric Adler and southpaw pen arm Garrett Schoenle joined the Barons from High-A Winston-Salem.

Greensboro Grasshoppers 9, Winston-Salem Dash 2 (Gameday Box) (Statcast Box)
Tanner McDougal saw fit to put the Dash right out of this one, with a crooked number allowed in the third and six runs yielded all told. The Hungry Hoppers already had plenty, but fed three more times off of Everhett Hazelwood — Greensboro took five balls out of the yard in the rout!

The Dash got their two runs mid-game, and even with something less than 10 Ks in the game of seven runners left on base, it was going to be hard to keep up with the home team on Tuesday.

Kannapolis Cannon Ballers 5, Lynchburg Hillcats 1 (suspended, rain) (Gameday box) (Statcast box)
A brilliant, if a touch wild, start from Drew McDaniel plus hitting heroics from center fielder (!) Drake Logan threatened to put this one out of reach by the time the rains came in the fifth inning. The game sits at two outs in the top of the fifth, with CBer Arxy Hernández at the plate. The game will be completed on Wednesday, followed by the regularly-scheduled game, trimmed to seven innings.