This Week in White Sox Minor League Baseball

This week:

• Gordon Beckham returned to game action after his brief stint on the DL for an abdominal injury. After a slow start, he returned to savior form. Season line: .299/.366/.488.
• Carlos Torres continues to plug away in his effort to be the standby sixth starter. Season line now 46 IP, 32 hits, 16 BB, and a very nice 49 K.
• Of course, there's another fellow in Charlotte who wants to be next in line and he has a bit more pedigree and a lot bigger contract. Jose Contreras threw a complete game one-hitter against Toledo, the Tigers' AAA affiliate. One should keep in mind that, if there are any AAA teams worse than the Knights, the Mud Hens would be in the discussion. Nevertheless, Jose was in the strike zone more than in his previous start and, while he isn't striking guys out at a high rate, the contact they are making hasn't been hard and is generally on the ground.
• Tyler Flowers: .261/.439/.452.
• Last Tuesday, we had a chance to speak to White Sox Assistant GM Rick Hahn. Here are my notes from the conversation. Topics included which players are the near untouchables, likely ETA for Flowers and Brandon Allen, a Steven Upchurch update, and Aaron Poreda.
• Jon Gilmore, the 20 year old 3B who came over in the Vazquez trade, had a horrible start to the season in Kannapolis, in which he batted well under .200. The last week, however, he's been on fire, going 15-26. The key difference has been cutting the strikeouts and putting the ball in play.
• SSS poster beutox put up some video of the Barons from their series against West Tenn. Gartrell, Danks, Shelby, Beckham, Viciedo, and Allen all included.
• Dan Remenowsky continues to strike out A ball hitters at an eye-popping rate of 2 per IP. As I've previously discussed, this undrafted righty doesn't have overpowering stuff; but what he does have is pinpoint command which is helping him miss a ton of bats. A source says: "He locates better than anyone else I have seen in the league." Expect a promotion to Winston-Salem soon.
• Dexter Carter is also a K machine. 44.1 IP and 61 K. What hurts him is a low groundball rate that translates into home runs.
• Brandon Allen: .294/.363/.497.
• Dayan Viciedo is continuing to adjust to AA. The last couple weeks he has cut the strikeouts and gotten more hits. The power still isn't there and the walks aren't either but making more frequent contact is a start.

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