Bright backstopping future: Teel (and Quero) help power White Sox 10-3 rout
Vargas and Rojas chip in, too, in 12-hit, five-walk effort
There was a time last season where I happened to recap a win, and the win was a well-played game, and it was decisive enough to hit the ground and scoot out of a room rapidly filling with smoke (I’m not going to look it up, although with 41 wins it shouldn’t be too hard), still somehow smiling.
Now, as it turns out, the whole house — hell, the entire block — burned to a crisp, and it wasn’t Mrs. O’Leary’s cow but Chris Getz, Pedro Grifol and Jerry Reinsdorf who lit the match.
But it’s always better to grin while writing a recap, or watching a game, or thinking about the next one. In spite of all of the negativity surrounding the Sox (and I’m still not sure I see a team improved enough to avoid 122 losses) over the past few seasons/endless rebuild, including on our pages, it sure is fun to see the team playing well.
And play well it did, pretty much top-to-bottom, with only a few bad hitting and one poor pitching effort. Unfortunately, win No. 5 falls in a tree-drops-in-woods category, as there was no media tracking the highlights. Might as well just trip into the game polls for all my prose will be able to help illustrate this game.
However, how exciting is this catching corps the White Sox have on the cusp? It’s become common assumption that Kyle Teel is the first up on the South Side, if not breaking camp after Spring Training, and he did nothing to dispel that in the DH slot today: 3-for-5, double, homer, two runs, three ribbies, K. But don’t sleep on Edgar Quero, who I personally like just as much, if not more, than Teel: Yeah, it was just a pinch-hit single in the ninth (coming home on Teel’s round-tripper), but like his catching counterpart Quero is batting better than .300 in limited play and is closer to the South Side than we think.
Also bully for two hitters who could be “stars” for the White Sox this season, one old and one new. Josh Rojas was the sole free agent bat signed for more than $2 million this summer, and he was everywhere today: 3-for-4 with two RBIs and two steals, playing both middle infield spots without a worry. Given the black hole currently sitting at shortstop, where none of the many ballyhooed prospects of past-present-future (Colson Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, Brooks Baldwin, Jacob Amaya) have made an impact, Rojas could provide just enough D to avoid forcing any of Chicago’s young pitchers to endure undue ERA spikes or cheap losses.
Rojas’ potential partner on the left side of the infield is the closest thing the White Sox have to a sure thing not named Luis Robert Jr., as Miguel Vargas has washed off all of that Dodgers-to-Sox shame and loss of appetite that understandably mucked up his 2024 debut with the team. His 1-for-2, double, two runs, two knocked in with a walk on Monday is the type of performance that, strung together, could salvage what to date seems a mockery of a 2024 trade deadline swap from Getz. Vargas is boasting a .316 average and .917 OPS, and might end up as the first true breakout player of Getz’s new “get on base” philosophy. (Why would this ever not be the philosophy is a discussion for a different recap.)
Pitching, well, there wasn’t too much STANDOUT but Martín Pérez, Owen White, Fraser Ellard and Jordan Leasure were very solid, combining for four hits, one earned, two walks and four Ks over six innings. The sore spot was Bryse Wilson, who was both hittable and wild over three innings but still held the fort (two earned) enough to earn the hold.
The White Sox improved to 5-11 and I’ll do the math for you, they are now on the cusp of losing just two of every three Cactus games — a 50-win pace, baby!
Chicago plays in Peoria tomorrow, checking in on Dylan Cease, Gavin Sheets, Manny Machado and all the other ex-Sox in a 3:05 p.m. CT game. Onward!