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White Sox Minor League Update: May 18, 2021

The teams in North Carolina got smoked, while the Barons just keep on winning

By Darren Black
Micker Adolfo added three hits during the Barons blowout win.
Phrake Photography/South Side Sox

This was not a very good game for Charlotte, and an even worse game for Reynaldo López. After his first start in Triple-A last week, which was actually quite good, he’s back to where he was when he left the White Sox. López was only able to get through one inning, in which he allowed four runs, with two of the four coming from a homer. From that point, the Knights were out of the game, but Matt Tomshaw still did something important. After he replaced López in the second inning, he went five good innings while only allowing two runs. It may not have been the outing Tomshaw expected to have going into the game, but he saved Charlotte’s bullpen. Meanwhile, the only offense was a couple of bombs, from Jake Burger and Brian Goodwin.

Jake Burger is just having an awesome start to his season: He now has four homers on the year, which is tied for the most on the team. This was Goodwin’s first homer in the White Sox organization, and I am beginning to think we will see both players in Chicago at some point.

To round out the rest of the game, there wasn’t much else excitement. Connor Sadzeck finished out the game with two innings; the Knights only used three pitchers today, which is a miracle after losing a starter after an inning. Blake Rutherford and Gavin Sheets added the other two hits of the night — and in Rutherford’s case, he also added the only stolen base, his first of the season.

Poll

Who was the Knights MVP?

This poll is closed

  • 54%
    Matt Tomshaw: 5 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 0 BB, 2 K
    (29 votes)
  • 43%
    Jake Burger: 1-for-4, 1 HR, 0 BB, 0 K
    (23 votes)
  • 1%
    Brian Goodwin: 1-for-3, 1 HR, 0 BB, 2 K
    (1 vote)
53 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Knights Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

  • 92%
    Reynaldo López: 1 IP, 4 ER, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 K
    (49 votes)
  • 5%
    Seby Zavala: 0-for-3, 0 BB, 3 K
    (3 votes)
  • 1%
    Nick Williams 0-for-3, 0 BB, 2 K
    (1 vote)
53 votes total Vote Now

The lone winner, and really the only good game on the farm, was in Birmingham — and it was a complete win. The offense and pitching were great, and it all started with Emilio Vargas. In what was his best outing of the season so far, he went four scoreless innings while striking out four hitters. He didn’t walk anybody, so any trouble he saw was because of three singles.

Ofriedy Gómez took over for Vargas and continued the scoreless innings. He went three innings and allowed no hits on top of no runs. He did walk a couple so it wasn’t perfect, but Gómez keeps on surprising everyone with his early-season dominance. He now has a 1.54 ERA.

While Vargas and Gómez were doing their thing for the first seven innings, the Barons offense helped them get out to a comfortable lead. In the first five innings, four different batters drove in a runner. JJ Muno started it off in the second, and Zack Granite added a two-RBI single later that same inning. Carlos Perez did not record an RBI, but his GIDP led to a run crossing the plate. The big offensive day came from Micker Adolfo, who made the game 5-0 after his RBI double. Adolfo had a three-hit day, and is now hitting above the Mendoza line.

The offense continued to add run support later in the game. After Montgomery scored a run in the eighth, the Barons added three more just for good measure. Perez scored on a passed ball, and then Muno tripled to get the second run. Mitch Roman, who had a throwing error earlier in the game, drove in the final run. Thanks to good offense and defense in Birmingham, the Sox farm system was at least able to get one win.

Poll

Who was the Barons MVP?

This poll is closed

  • 24%
    Emilio Vargas: 4 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 4 K
    (12 votes)
  • 8%
    Ofriedy Gómez: 3 IP, 0 ER, 0 H, 2 BB, 4 K
    (4 votes)
  • 55%
    Micker Adolfo: 3-for-4, 1 R, 1 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K
    (27 votes)
  • 12%
    JJ Muno: 2-for-3, 2 R, 2 RBI, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 SB
    (6 votes)
49 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Barons Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

  • 88%
    Ian Dawkins: 0-for-4, 0 BB, 0 K
    (30 votes)
  • 11%
    Peter Tago: 1 IP, 1 ER, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 K
    (4 votes)
34 votes total Vote Now

The offense did not show out in this one for Winston-Salem, at all. They scored no runs and only recorded one hit, so it was almost impossible for the pitching to keep up with that. Johan Dominguez got the start for the Dash, and was doing well through the first four innings. He only allowed one run and had three straight scoreless innings leading up to the fifth, where he ran in to some trouble. He allowed a two-run homer to push the Dash deficit to three, which in this game was insurmountable.

Unfortunately, the bullpen dug the Dash into a deeper hole. Edgar Navarro came in for the seventh inning after a scoreless outing from Sal Biasi. Navarro put four batters on base that inning and allowed two runs, including one off of a wild pitch. In reality, this bad inning did not matter much. The Dash could only come up with one hit on the day, an Alex Destino double, and one walk, from Luis Mieses. It was a brutal effort by the offense in this one.

Poll

Who was the Dash MVP?

This poll is closed

  • 76%
    Johan Dominguez: 5 IP, 3 ER, 5 H, 1 BB, 6 K
    (23 votes)
  • 23%
    Alex Destino: 1-for-3, 0 BB, 1 K
    (7 votes)
30 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Dash Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

  • 14%
    Edgar Navarro: 1 IP, 2 ER, 3 H, 1 BB, 1 K
    (4 votes)
  • 18%
    Yolbert Sanchez: 0-for-4, 0 BB, 1 K, 1 ER
    (5 votes)
  • 66%
    Lenyn Sosa, 0-for-4, 0 BB, 3 K
    (18 votes)
27 votes total Vote Now

Another White Sox minor league team, and another pitiful offensive performance where the pitching staff deserved much better. Through most of the game, this DJ Gladney home run was the lone Kannapolis hit.

While that was all the run support the Cannon Ballers had, the pitching was doing just fine — for a little while. Chase Solesky got the start and went four innings. It was not a stellar start, because he allowed eight runners on base in that time span, but the seven strikeouts prevented anything from getting out of hand. Trey Jeans took over for Solesky and was decent overall, but had one very bad inning in the seventh. After getting two outs and only one runner on base, he allowed one run and was pulled from the game for Marcus Every. Evey finally got Kannapolis out of the inning, but it didn’t get better for him in the next. He allowed the first five batters to reach base without recording an out before he was lifted from the game. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to keep Jeans in, as Evey left the game with the score 8-1. He left some runners on base, and when Sammy Peralta allowed all of them, and more, to score, it turned into a 12-1 ballgame. That is where it finished, just an all-around bad day, again, for Kannapolis.

Poll

Who was the Cannon Ballers MVP?

This poll is closed

  • 0%
    Chase Solesky: 4 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 3 BB, 7 K
    (0 votes)
  • 100%
    DJ Gladney: 2-for-4, 1 HR, 0 BB, 1 K
    (33 votes)
33 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Cannon Ballers Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

  • 96%
    Marcus Evey: 1⁄3 IP, 6 ER, 6 H, 2 BB, 0 BB
    (27 votes)
  • 3%
    Lency Delgado: 0-for-4, 0 BB, 1 K, 1 ER
    (1 vote)
28 votes total Vote Now

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