It’s time to highlight who had a big week on the White Sox farm. This edition is the first full seven days’ worth, as last week’s covered the first stub of five games.
Plenty of strong performances stood out, but the Winston-Salem Dash dominate the internal leaderboards over the past week’s worth of play. Let’s get started!
Charlotte Knights (AAA)
The Knights haven’t won many games in the last week, so not surprisingly there aren’t a ton of impressive performances. Daniel Palka hit just .240, but with three home runs and a double among his six hits that translates to a .961 OPS. Able to play corner outfield slots and first base, Palka could see Chicago at some point in 2018. Infielder Juan Perez has been handling the bat well too, posting a .273/.360/.500 line in the last seven days.
Michael Kopech made a single start but was effective, if in a statistically unusual way for him. In a game where he hit triple digits on the gun multiple times, he only struck out three batters in six innings, but posted a whopping 11:0 GO:FO ratio. His brief vacation into ground-baller territory resulted in allowing just a single run in those six frames. Chris Beck was literally unhittable in a spot start – he struck out six, allowing one walk and no hits in three innings.
Birmingham Barons (AA)
Seby Zavala continues to swing a hot bat for the Barons. The catcher’s combined line in the last seven days: .333/.368/.600. He’s in a tandem arrangement with Zack Collins, so some of those games were as a DH. Here’s a name Sox fans may not have heard in a while – Trey Michalczewski swung a big stick in the last week. His .353/.389/.412 triple-slash is refreshing given his struggles at this level the last two seasons.
Ian Clarkin made one start and made it count: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. Lefty Brian Clark made one spot start and one relief appearance, whiffing six batters against zero walks in 4.2 innings. Reliever Brad Goldberg, who was a surprise to be assigned down to AA to open 2018, also struck out six but in just three frames.
Winston-Salem Dash (A+)
The Dash have been on fire recently, so there’s a lot of goodness to report here. Let’s start with the offensive highlights:
- Luis Alexander Basabe: .433/.485/.767, 3 2B, 2 3B, 1 HR, 1 SB
- Micker Adolfo: .357/.400/.679, 3 2B, 2 HR (also just named Carolina League Player of the Week)
- Joel Booker: .348/.400/.652, 1 2B, 2 HR, 3 SB
- Gavin Sheets: .364/.440/.500, 3 2B
- Ti’Quan Forbes: .300/.440/.400, 2 2B
That lineup is just a monster. But there were plenty of pitchers who performed well too:
- Dylan Cease: 1 start – 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K
- Jimmy Lambert: 2 starts: 10.1 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 10 K
- Dane Dunning: 2 starts: 12.1 IP, 10 H, 4 ER, 0 BB, 15 K
- Kyle Kubat: 2 games: 4 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 K
This Winston-Salem team is a ton of fun to watch, and it’s only going to get better with phenom outfielder Luis Robert set to join the squad in May.
Kannapolis Intimidators (A)
For now-first baseman Justin Yurchak, it might feel like he’s already had two seasons in 2018. In his first five games he went 0-for-20 with 5 K’s, but in the past week he’s posted a .316/.409/.421 line with 3 walks against just 2 strikeouts. The latter is more in line with what was expected from him, so maybe he was just a little tight in his first week of full season ball. Laz Rivera had a strong week as well, hitting .292 with a pair of doubles, a home run and two steals.
The most impressive Intimidators performances though, were from the pitching staff. John Parke had a terrific start in his only appearance of the week: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K. Kade McClure (who we just wrote a profile on) was solid in a pair of starts: 11.1 IP, 12 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 13 K. Flamethrowing reliever Tyler Johnson (who we will be writing in detail about soon) has been filthy, throwing 3.1 innings of hitless baseball while striking out seven batters. Fellow reliever Jake Elliott put up five scoreless frames, allowing four hits and striking out five with no walks.
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