Aaron Poreda, the 25th overall pick in 2007.

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This week:

• After two less than stellar starts, Aaron Poreda found the form he had last season at Birmingham on Thursday night. His slider was finally working and his fastball had its usual ferocity, reaching 97 MPH on the Birmingham gun. He also was occasionally mixing in his new curveball, a pitch he's been working on for about a year. It wasn't clear whether his success with that pitch was because hitters weren't aware of it / expecting it, but he was buckling the knees of hitters with it. If he's throwing that with a similar motion to his other pitches, assuming he gets consistent with his slider, it could be the third pitch he needs to be a front-end starter. A couple 'ifs' there but something to watch for in the future.
• Gordon Beckham: .298/.365/.474.
• Jayson Nix began his rehab journey with three games for the Barons before moving on to Charlotte. His return to game action caused all sorts of speculation as to whom he would be replacing on the Sox (because a player of Nix's lofty stature must be a prime candidate for a major league roster spot). It also caused quite a stir when he played all three games at shortstop for Birmingham and displaced Beckham to 2B. But, of course, that was much ado about nothing. At any rate, Nix has been hitting minor leaguers like one would expect an AAAA player to hit them.
• Scott Podsednik is also biding his time with the Knights. He seems to be getting back his, ahem, swagger after his brief layoff following his release from the Rockies.
• There appears to be some consternation about Dayan Viciedo's start to his pro career. He's not hitting for power and he isn't drawing walks. I would ask people to take notice of this. Let me know if you find anyone else playing in the Southern League who was born in 1989. Give the man time to settle in.
• Jordan Danks continues to rake but the strikeout rate remains high. .297/.384/.500.
• Random White Sox Minor Leaguer Note: Dan Remenowsky went undrafted last year out of Division III Otterbein College in Ohio. Instead, he joined up with the Windy City Thunderbolts of the independent Frontier League where he made two appearances before being signed by Doug Laumann, White Sox Director of Scouting. All he did after that was mow down Rookie Leaguers at a brief stop in Bristol and then Great Falls. And he's continued mowing down A ballers at Kannapolis so far this season. He's a soft-throwing righty whose fastball tops out in the mid-80s and he's gotten hitters out by changing speeds. That's the sort of thing that doesn't usually work well at the higher levels; nevertheless, he's an interesting story.
• Brandon Allen: .328/.381/.569. I hear Charlotte is lovely.

As always, check the Minor League Update Fanpost on the right sidebar for daily updates and commentary. Additionally, I twitter updates from the minor league games that I watch/listen to so, if you're interested in that or my other random baseball thoughts, follow me: http://twitter.com/SouthSidelarry.