Gamethread: Twins at White Sox

The Chicago White Sox have managed to overpack this tiny, two-game series against the forgettable Minnesota Twins with news, notes and all sorts of nonsense.

Today’s breaking story, on top of the schedule release, was the White Sox swap of ace LOOGY Luis Avilán to Philadelphia. Ironically, in a season where Avilán parlayed Chicago’s unsettled bullpen/closer circumstances into his first two career saves, he joins a Phillies club that is the only one in the majors with more pitchers than the White Sox recording at least one save on the season.

Coming back from Philadelphia is Felix Paulino, and I’ll let Phillies prospects writer Matt Winkelman give you the skinny:

And an observation from our own larry (remember when there was a little bit of hand-wringing about losing Jake Peter, especially after he hit, what, a dinger or two against the White Sox in a spring training game?):

Seriously, bully on Rick Hahn for pulling off these shenanigans. Jake Peter yielded Avilán, Joakim Soria and some scratch to pay those dudes. After these swaps of Avilán and Soria, the trade looks more like:

Jake Peter and $2,500,000 (in Soria/Avilán net salary)

for

approximately 2.0 WAR ... 18 saves, Kodi Medeiros, Felix Paulino and Wilbur Perez

In supplemental news, the White Sox have called up 40-man roster member Ryan Burr — indeed, it means that Burr has beaten (Ian) Hamilton to the majors — to replace Avilán.

José Abreu, who went from 2-for-5 with a double on Monday to abdominal discomfort necessitating a hospital visit Tuesday to mid-game surgery (!) with an unspecified hernia or appendicitis or herniated appendicitis or appendix-induced herniation, was put on the 10-day DL and replaced on the roster not by everyone’s favorite service-time cautionary tale Eloy Jiménez, but power-packed energy wad José Rondón.

So, unlike yesterday, the White Sox will not be outmanned in the matinee today. But if Dylan Covey throws another three innings, there’s some rampant food poisoning running through the clubhouse that Super Joe isn’t telling us about.

Speaking of Super Joe, we get to see his delightful script on lineups for a game he’s actually managing today. (Get well, Ricky!)

(Yo, a relatively rare flip of the Yo-Yo, no?)

“Look for the sweep”