Chicago White Sox Minor League Update: August 1, 2023, including George Wolkow’s pro debut

A tough one from the Knights on a number of levels. At the tippy top, newly-acquired Jordan Leasure played a big role in today’s loss. He came into the eighth of a 2-2 ballgame and left it 6-2. Now, there was some poor fielding to help (two unearned runs), but Leasure could not make it out of the inning and had really poor control. He showed off what enticed the White Sox though, pumping fastballs in the upper 90s.

Leasure took over for starter Garrett Davila. Davila went pretty long for a minor league pitcher, seven innings, but he was really cruising through the game (only 82 pitches) when he left. He wasn’t as dominant as the seven innings and two runs allowed line would imply, as he had more fly outs than grounders and only struck out four. It got the job done, though.

What job was done, in a bad way, was the offense as a whole. They didn’t walk the entire game (hello, White Sox!) and only came up with three runs. Adam Haseley and Víctor Reyes led the team with two hits each. I thought at least one would go back up to Chicago going into today, but after the deadline, not so much. One guy that should be up is Lenyn Sosa, but he played today. So, will he be ticketed to Texas tomorrow? He hit a home run tonight, to press his point.

16th of the year for Lenyn Sosa! pic.twitter.com/qncqzGv5Ji
— Charlotte Knights (@KnightsBaseball) August 2, 2023

Poll

Who was the Knights MVP?

This poll is closed

9%

Víctor Reyes: 2-for-4, 1 RBI, 0 BB, 1 K

(5 votes)
21%

Lenyn Sosa: 1-for-4, 1 HR, 0 BB, 2 K

(11 votes)
69%

Garrett Davila: 7 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K

(36 votes)

52 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Knights Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

37%

Trayce Thompson: 0-for-4, 0 BB, 3 K

(20 votes)
3%

Carlos Pérez: 0-for-4, 0 BB, 0 K

(2 votes)
58%

Jordan Leasure: 2⁄3 IP, 2 H, 4 R (2 ER), 2 BB, 0 K

(31 votes)

53 votes total Vote Now

Quite the lineup for the Barons, look at the top of that lineup:

Terrell Tatum
Colson Montgomery
José Rodríguez
Bryan Ramos
Edgar Quero

It didn’t go so well as a team, even if all five of these guys got hits. This was Montgomery's first game back in Double-A. His first hit was a solid double to right.

Welcome back to Double-A, Colson Montgomery!

The No. 1 @whitesox prospect crushes a double -- his first hit for the @BhamBarons since September 2022: pic.twitter.com/B1jT8MnLb8
— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) August 2, 2023

Montgomery’s issue with Double-A last season was stamina. With his late start in 2023, hopefully he can finish out the season strong and prove he belongs this time around.

Bryan Ramos had a double himself; he has been hurt for portions of the year. So, he is behind in his development as well, and maybe Montgomery can bring him to the Arizona Fall League. Edgar Quero had an RBI single, but his arm from behind the plate was on display today. There were four stolen base chances against him, and he gunned down three.

Didn’t we just go over this, @trashpandas

Quero’s second successful throw down of the game pic.twitter.com/JCHm7hiHAd
— Birmingham Barons (@BhamBarons) August 2, 2023

It was also a good Cristian Mena day, and the Sox really need to see more from him in his last handful of starts. He got 13 swings-and-misses over five innings. That led the six strikeouts, with the lone run allowed a homer. He did get somewhat lucky, as he was knocked around for eight hits and only one run came of it. Still, it was a good start for Mena.

The bullpen kept the Trash Pandas from scoring for the rest of regulation. It wasn’t until the zombie runner in the 10th when they got the second run, and eventual game-winner.

Poll

Who was the Barons MVP?

This poll is closed

88%

Cristian Mena: 5 IP, 8 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

(47 votes)
7%

Bryan Ramos: 1-for-3, 1 BB, 0 K

(4 votes)
3%

Colson Montgomery: 1-for-4, 1 BB, 2 K

(2 votes)

53 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Barons Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

55%

Moisés Castillo: 0-for-4, 0 BB, 0 K

(25 votes)
40%

Jonah Scolaro: 2 IP, 1 H, 2 R (1 ER), 2 BB, 2 K

(18 votes)
4%

Ben Norman: 0-for-3, 1 BB, 1 K

(2 votes)

45 votes total Vote Now

Bad offense, mostly bad pitching (except for Drew Dalquist), and you get a Dash loss. That isn’t surprising. What was surprising was seeing Dalquist pitch well. This was his third game out of the bullpen, as the Sox finally pulled the plug on him in the rotation. For the first time, Dalquist looked good in relief. Hopefully it continues, as Jared Kelley also has looked a bit better out of the pen. It remains to be seen if both become one-to-two inning types of pitchers with the Sox.

Besides Dalquist, the pitching was really bad. Johan Dominguez is still working back from his missed season, and didn’t look good today. He is at 11 innings, so maybe he gets back up to Triple-A soon. Believe it or not, Dominguez could be an option to get some starts in Chicago next year.

Meanwhile, on the bad offensive side, they reached base just seven times while striking out 13. Tim Elko and Wilfred Veras did best, as Elko had a couple of hits, one being a hustle double to help get his OPS better than 1.000. Veras singled and walked, so four of the seven times on base between just two hitters.

Poll

Who was the Dash MVP?

This poll is closed

67%

Drew Dalquist: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K

(36 votes)
0%

Wilfred Veras: 1-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K

(0 votes)
32%

Tim Elko: 2-for-4, 1 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K

(17 votes)

53 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Dash Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

0%

Loidel Chapelli Jr.: 0-for-3, 0 BB, 2 K

(0 votes)
4%

DJ Gladney: 0-for-4, 0 BB, 2 K

(2 votes)
92%

Kole Ramage: 2⁄3 IP, 4 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 1 K

(38 votes)
2%

Vince Vannelle: 2 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 0 K

(1 vote)

41 votes total Vote Now

Jacob González’s first professional error helps put Kannapolis in a hole early, and they remained in that hole the entire game. It resulted directly in the first two runs of the game and extended the inning for two more. Drew McDaniel wasn’t good enough today to deal with that and ended up leaving the game with eight runs allowed. Anderson Comás took over, and he is really becoming a great story. He took the change to the mound seriously, and in his first full season as a pitcher has only allowed two runs over 34 innings. It is far off to see where he can end up going in his career, but he has really good command and not a lot of experience pitching. That is a decent combo.

González did get a hit later in the game, but that didn’t really help the offense score the nine runs they needed. Still, 12 runners were on base and only two runs came of it, that is a bad combo. Chris Lanzilli did his best to correct that, with a 3-for-3 game and the team’s only extra-base hit.

Another 2023 pick did play today, eighth-rounder Eddie Park. He walked, and that was it from the batter’s box. He played center, where he should see a lot of time for the rest of the year.

Poll

Who was the Cannon Ballers MVP?

This poll is closed

18%

Anderson Comás: 2 1⁄3 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

(8 votes)
11%

Zach Cable: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K

(5 votes)
69%

Chris Lanzilli: 3-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 0 K

(30 votes)

43 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who was the Cannon Ballers Cold Cat?

This poll is closed

14%

Brooks Baldwin: 0-for-5, 0 BB, 0 K

(6 votes)
0%

Jacob González: 1-for-3, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 Error

(0 votes)
85%

Drew McDaniel: 3 2⁄3 IP, 7 H, 8 R (4 ER), 3 BB, 5 K

(35 votes)

41 votes total Vote Now

There were a ton of 2023 draft class names in the ACL game today, headlined by George Wolkow, who played right field and went 0-for-3. He led off the second inning and grounded out, 3-1. In the fourth, he led off and did exactly the same thing. In the bottom of the fifth, with a runner on third and two outs, Wolkow ended the threat with a ground out to second base. Erick Hernández then came on as a defensive sub after the sixth inning.