This Week in White Sox Minor League Baseball

This week:

Demotions, not promotions, were the story. Both RHP Myles Jaye and OF Keenyn Walker made the sad trip from Birmingham back to Winston-Salem. The 22-year-old pitcher at Birmingham: 10 GS, 47 IP, 49 H, 25 BB, 35 K, 4 HBP, 4 WP. Jaye has responded well, so far. In two starts for the Dash, he's thrown 16 innings, give up just 8 hits and 2 walks, and struck out 8. Jaye was young for Double-A, so a brief setback like this isn't a big problem for his development.

Walker, on the other hand, spent almost a year and a half flailing about for the Barons. In 2014, he put up a putrid .155/.231/.236 line. The 23-year-old was good stealing bases and on defense but that's irrelevant if you can't hit. He wasn't that impressive when he was with the Dash for the last couple months of the 2012 season, which made the White Sox decision to start him at Birmingham in 2013...well, normal for them but silly in the non-White Sox player development world.

1B Rangel Ravelo: .294/.413/.446. Age appropriate for the Southern League.

As some of you know, CBS Sports Network is broadcasting a MiLB game each week. Charlotte has already appeared but it was announced that the game between Birmingham and Huntsville will be aired August 7. With that addition to the schedule, all four full season affiliates will have a game televised. Kannapolis against Charleston will air June 19 and Winston-Salem against Myrtle Beach will air on July 3.

Erik Johnson needs to not pitch for awhile. He's lost velocity, command and control. The explanation for that is almost always injury and the 24-year-old has been no stranger to them. The righty has had problems with his shoulder in the past and that's probably a good bet for what's wrong now. The shoulder is complex and diagnosing a problem can be challenging, most particularly since imaging, such as MRI, is often little use. Whatever the exact issue is, however, isn't going to be helped by continuing to pitch.

3B Trey Michalczewski: .281/.369/.411. Very impressive for the switch-hitter, particularly considering he's just 19 and league-average for the South Atlantic League is about .259/.329/.378.