White Sox Minor League Update: May 26, 2024
Another three wins in four games, is this system getting strong for the first time in ever?
Sunday was not quite as sweet as Saturday, as we only got three-and-a-half games. But still three wins of four, and the playoff-hopeful Barons and Cannon Ballers ran it up once again. Let’s get to the fun!
Charlotte Knights 4, Nashville Sounds 3 (Gameday Box) (Statcast Box)
We tend to just overlook the Knights, as sort of not a true White Sox farm team. Not fair, right? Well, it’s sure gonna help once some of that sweet sweet talent now crushing it in Birmingham ships east back to the Carolinas for some Triple-A challenges, assuming they don’t all just pull a Bryan Ramos and hop right to the South Side.
Still, some nice highlights pop up just about every game at beautiful Truist Field, even as the club struggles to sniff even a sniff of .500. Tonight, the pitching stepped up sweetly, with Jonathan Cannon continuing a course correction while getting some needed starts in Triple-A and Aaron McGarity shutting the door in Nashville with tonight’s highest WPA across the system.
The hitting, well, it did enough. Every hitter in the lineup had exactly one strikeout, which is some sort of metaphorical wackiness playing out in real game time. Every hitter but Rafael Ortega, who was the top masher in this one. Although, as the No. 9 hitter, he was due for one more at-bat ... wanna guess what would have happened?
Such are the days we count, until the Birmingham Barons arrive in town.
Birmingham Barons 8, Biloxi Shuckers 4 (Gameday box)
Getting tired of Birmingham always winning? Nope, me neither.
After another smackdown of Biloxi — yeah, Birmingham swept the six-game set and have won nine of 10 — the Barons have won more than twice as many games as lost, at 30-14 on the season. Let’s not give them any ideas, but Sergio Santos’ charges could probably run out .500 months in June-August and win the division at this point.
Terrell Tatum took center-ring honors in this win, driving in runs, hitting for gap power, avoiding Ks. This game was one to dream on; like, could he be the leadoff hitter we’ve been waiting for on the South Side for, like, ever? Jacob Gonzalez got in another game at second base without error, ceding shortstop to the senior of the squad, Brooks Baldwin, of the .360 batting average and .922 OPS Baldwins.
Jake Eder pitched good enough to win, but win he did not. Huh? Well, the Barons played with their food a little in this one, waiting until the eighth innings to bust out a crooked number and put the Shuckers in the rear view mirror.
Bowling Green Hot Rods 8, Winston-Salem Dash 2 (five innings due to wet grounds) (Gameday box)
To be fair, with the way the system has been playing, given a proper full nine innings Winston-Salem surely would have prevailed in the muck, but indeed “wet grounds” doomed the Dash to defeat. If that seems like the sort of call a home team would make to steal a win, tuck your conspiracy theories back somewhere between COVID Was a Hoax and The Election Was Stolen in your file cabinet, because what ho, the ballgame was in North Carolina.
If nothing else telling me that I still don’t quite understand the methodology of advanced statistics, Shawn Goosenberg — on the face of it today’s Dash MVP — had the third-lowest WPA per Statcast. Huh. In other stat-defying developments, Libertyville’s Own Riley Gowens took a gut punch in his start; the long ball continues to plague him and delay any move up to Bham.
Kannapolis Cannon Ballers 10, Augusta GreenJackets 1 (Gameday Box)
For real, hats off to Kanny, who just a sneeze ago was a .500 club, has won four straight, eight of 10 and now are within a half-game of tops in the Carolina League proper. Perhaps most promising for the remainder of the summer is the fact that the Cannon Ballers hold a +93 run differential, tops in the CL; second-best in runs scored at 250, and well in front with run suppression (156). At basically the 45-game mark in 2024, Kannapolis is 41 runs better than any opponent in run differential.
OK nerd, how about the 10-1 win Sunday? It’s what you’ve come to expect from these guys: Lucas Gordon pitches deep and efficiently into a game (hell’s he still doing in Low-A Sox?), Rikuu Nishida pestered his way around the bases, multiple times, Ryan Burrowes shows you why but for a HBP on the hand this spring he would have broke camp in Kanny. And so on. I mean, we can’t even piece together a proper Cold Cat poll below (sorry, Javier!)