White Sox Minor League Update: October 2, 2021

[Continuing a theme tonight that started with our gamethread and carried into the White Sox recap, tonight’s minor league writing will feature me posing as our two most prominent MiLB writing voices, Darren Black and Julie Brady.]

When you’re 47-80, not playing can indeed feel like a win. In that case, the Charlotte Knights are now owners of a two-game winning streak, only in this sense the winning is truly more of a not-losing situation. This hunch is confirmed by a quick check of the standings, which locate Charlotte in last place among all 30 Triple-A teams, and by three full games. If that is somehow unconvincing, the Knights have the second-worst run differential in Triple-A, are just one of two teams with fewer than 50 wins (and the only team with no chance at reaching 50 wins this year, because I know you were wondering), and have a record worse than 20 games under .500 on the road. Because I take the time to run the numbers you find distasteful, and because I’d rather not tackle any new real work on a Saturday night, the Knights being 38 games behind Durham atop their Southeast Division means to get back in the race the Knights would have to win for six straight weeks, the Bulls lose for six straight weeks. Oh, wait, that would still put Charlotte two games behind Durham. I guess this is what they mean when they say wait till next year, although we are all (yes, I’m presuming a familiar we, if you are reading a lengthy writeup of a Charlotte Knights rainout in the waning moments of your Saturday night party hour or on NFL Sunday, you know the White Sox system as well as anyone, myself included) familiar enough with the Knights to know that next year will only be marginally better or worse than this — and without Micker Adolfo to literally loom large over the proceedings.

Anyhow, Alex McRae, who I am roughly 96% certain is not the driver of the Maroon 5 car that has plagued my apartment building for more than a year now but who sticks in my head as the lead suspect among Knights, starts in the finale of the Memphis series, and the season, on Sunday. With McRae at 2-9 and the Knights losing every game of baseball, skee-ball, pinball, racquetball, kickball and dodgeball they’ve played since, approximately, June, perhaps it’s best they win on Sunday by just getting a little soggy and flying home to celebrate proper with an It’s Over beer shower in the Truist Field clubhouse.—Julie Brady

Giving up just one hit, even in a short, seven-inning game: that’s good. Losing the game, because you can’t block pitches at home plate? Not so much. That’s the story of the season finale for the DSL entry, sort of an underwhelming way to end the season if you ask me. White Sox pitching was pretty good, well Daniel González was wild, but maybe just wild enough to be effective: No earned runs over four innings, four walks but at least there were four strikeouts also. Not that it mattered, one run was enough to win this game, but Seattle’s second run came in on a bases-loaded walk from González, so, maybe not so hot. And that’s where the game gets weird, if losing on a passed ball and a bases-loaded walk wasn’t weird enough for you: The bases-loaded walk was to Carlos Jiménez. If Carlos Jiménez sounds like a familiar name for those of you following our DSL writing, well yeh, the White Sox have a Carlos Jiménez, too. Both even bat left-handed. Our Carlos is 6´4´´, though. For the record there were also opposing Aguilars in this game, too, and because our Aguilar committed the passed ball that scored what turned out to be the winning run, Seattle got the best of the White Sox in both Aguilars and Jiménezes today.

It was a good season for the DSL White Sox, even finishing at 26-33. It’s a big step down from their strong 2019 season, but in 2018 the affiliate was comically bad, so in 2021 they split the difference and have some promising names — Norge Vera (you think maybe?), Alvaro Aguero (22 steals in 25 attempts over 52 games), and others.—Darren Black