White Sox Minor League Update: June 22, 2021

All four teams go down, but Micker Adolfo and Yolbert Sánchez each had two homers on the night

Another day, another tough Reynaldo López outing, as his ERA is now up to 9.13. He was only able to record six outs, while allowing four runs off of seven hits. López has just fallen off of a cliff, and he cannot climb out of it right now. Tanner Banks allowed the final two runs.

But more importantly on the pitching side, Jace Fry looked good again. He had a perfect inning with a couple of strikeouts, and the Sox definitely need some sort of bullpen help.

With Luis González’s promotion, Mikie Mahtook got the start in center field and went 0-for-4, The offense all came in the last two innings, but only Tim Beckham really drove in a run. The Sounds reliever, Patrick Weigel, was struggling in the eighth inning and actually walked home two runs. Unfortunately, the Knights could not help themselves and get a bigger hit. Beckham was able to do that in the ninth with an RBI double; that was his lone hit of the day, but he also walked twice and stole a base to top it all off. Marco Hernández, another player to watch if the Sox look to promote somebody, also reached base three times in this one.

Another loss for the farm system, but this one was at least close. It was not a back-and-forth game, as Pensacola had the lead for the vast majority of this one, but Birmingham kept themselves in it. They could only come up with three runs, but they each came via the home run. Joel Booker got the first in the third inning, his second in as many days. Micker Adolfo got the final two, to bring his season total to 10. The last of Adolfo’s homers was just crushed.

The pitching was all right; Konnor Pilkington went five innings and allowed three runs, including another homer. The bullpen was a bit better, especially if you look at Bennett Sousa and Lane Ramsey closing the game. They combined for five strikeouts over two shutout innings. The offense just could not overcome the one-run deficit.

In a word, this game was crazy, with 29 total runs scored with 33 hits — and somehow, 31 strikeouts.

The Dash came up short, so let’s start with the bad, the pitching. Johan Dominguez allowed nine runs in two innings, by far and away his worst start this season. After that, no other pitchers really had a good day (maybe Ryan Williamson, because he didn’t have an earned run, but he still allowed two hits during his inning). Everybody else had an earned run as the Tourists scored in six innings total today. The offense was great though, so let’s stay on that a bit more.

Duke Ellis was a menace today at the plate and on base. He reached base three times in this game, and stole at least one base each time. His first time on base, he stole second and then promptly stole third. While Ellis was turning singles into doubles, a couple of other guys had multiple hits on the day. Evan Skoug, fresh off his SSS weekly MVP, had two hits, including a home run. Yolbert Sánchez led the team with four hits and had two homers on the day. He actually hit more homers today than he had for the entire season up until this game. Sánchez has his OPS up to .748, and he is getting hot at the right time. In June, Sánchez is slashing .359/.423/.531 and should be a candidate for a promotion after this stretch of games. For those on Yoelqui Céspedes watch, he was really the only batter that didn’t do well, with an 0-for-3 performance. He is still searching for that first hit.

Kannapolis had a fine day at the plate overall, they were just 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position so they came up short in this one.

Lency Delgado had the best day of the Cannon Ballers hitters, with three hits (all singles) the only run for Kanny. In the fourth inning, DJ Gladney grounded into a double play that allowed Delgado to score to make it 2-1. Most of the struggles with base runners probably came because of 14 strikeouts; only singles for hits hurts too.

Andrew Dalquist did not have his best start, with two runs and three walks in just four innings. He did have his strikeout pitch going, though, with seven, matching a season high from earlier this month. Martin Carrasco came in for Dalquist and allowed two more runs, putting the game out of reach given how the offense was going.

Still, 11-31 Kannapolis has won seven of their last 14 games.