Jake Burger roared back from a mini-slump and newly acquired Ruben Tejada delivered two clutch hits — and in so doing may be putting himself in consideration for a postseason roster spot with the White Sox — in an otherwise down week for the Knights.
The team wrapped up the second half of a 14-day road trip by losing four of six games in Jacksonville, all by one run and three by the score of 2-1. (If you like 2-1 ball games, this was the series for you: it was the final score in four of the six games, including both ends of Saturday’s doubleheader.)
Timely hits and extra-base knocks were hard to come by. The Knights hit .219 for the week, with just three home runs, a triple and seven doubles. But some of the best pitching of the season kept the Knights in striking distance. Among individual performers, Burger continued bouncing back from a rough few days on the first half of the road trip in Norfolk. After a 2-15 stretch in the first four games of that series, Burger got a day off a week ago Saturday. It seems to have revitalized the slugger — he has a slash line of .370/.393/.593 in the seven games since.
FRESH ADDITION
As for Tejada, the White Sox signed the veteran last week and assigned him to Charlotte, and did he ever hit the ground running. In Friday’s 5-1 Knights’ win, Tejada broke a scoreless game with a two-out, bases-loaded single. A day later, in the second game of a double-header that was scoreless and in extra innings, he hit a two-run home run that proved to be the game winner.
Tejada, 31, played nine years in the majors, mostly with the Mets, carving out a lifetime OBP of .324. While Romy Gonzalez is a great story, and he may become a terrific player for the White Sox one day, it is hard to believe he’ll be on the postseason roster this year. If there is an open bench spot, I have to think Tejada is putting himself on the radar. This could be a huge week for him.
ADOLFO AND FORBES SOLID
Meanwhile, with Billy Hamilton, Gavin Sheets, Danny Mendick and Gonzalez all in Chicago, and Jake Lamb DFA’d and playing in Toronto, ample playing time opened up for Micker Adolfo and Ti’Quan Forbes, and they responded with some big hits in Jacksonville. Adolfo smacked a home run and two doubles, and Forbes added a homer and three doubles. The only other extra-base knocks in the series included Tejada’s round tripper, a Burger triple and doubles by Burger and Mikie Mahtook.
Mahtook had a solid week with six hits in 21 at bats, and channeled his inner Billy Hamilton with four stolen bases in four attempts. He is now six of eight on the season. The Knights played a doubleheader on Saturday, because the Jacksonville ballpark is next door to the NFL football stadium and there is a pro game on Sunday. The scheduling quirk means that the Knights get a rare two-day break here late in the season.
Perhaps the extra rest will reinvigorate the offense for the final 16 games. That’s especially the case for Blake Rutherford, who followed up a strong August with a lackluster road trip. Fatigue could be a part of it — Rutherford has 426 plate appearances this year, almost 100 more than anyone else on the team.
BIRMINGHAM ARMS LEAD THE WAY
The Charlotte staff has struggled much of the year, and there were few reasons for optimism in the final weeks of the season after a season-ending injury to Jonathan Stiever, the call-ups of Mike Wright and Jimmy Lambert (he has since returned to Charlotte after a successful spot start) and the release of Kyle Crick.
But no less than seven arms from Birmingham were promoted over the past two months, and their success has keyed the resurgence of the Knights’ staff. Leading the way are two starters, John Parke and Kade McClure.
McClure, the FutureSox #19 prospect, took the ball on Friday after the Knights dropped the first three games of the series and was outstanding, with five innings of one-run ball. After a slow start in his first few Triple-A starts, he has been dominant in his last three: 16 innings, nine hits and one earned run. “He spots the zone,” manager Wes Helms said. “He locates, he doesn’t walk a lot of guys. He’s got a good fastball and a good breaking ball and he mixes it up well. He’s very smart at retaining the game plan so he knows how to attack these hitters. He will get some strikeouts but he’s going to rely on soft contact.”
JOHN PARKE SEES CONTINUED SUCCESS
Parke has been equally impressive. On Saturday, he gave up five hits and two earned runs over five innings in a losing effort. He may not have the big fastball like McClure, but he has excellent command and makes very few mistakes over the plate. Parke has never cracked the FutureSox Top 30 list, and soft-tossing, pitch-to-contact guys have a tough, though not impossible road to the major leagues. But there’s no denying he has been among the more successful Knights’ starters this year.
In eight starts with the Knights, Parke has a .230 batting average against and a 1.13 WHIP. The lefty is a ground-ball-generating machine — 61% of his batted balls are grounders, versus an MLB average of 44%. “His fastball tails away from righties and down and in to lefties,” Helms said. “He’s not going to strike out a lot of guys. He has to rely on getting those ground balls for his infielders and getting swings and misses down in the zone. And that’s what he does.”
BULLPEN INFUSION
Meanwhile, five Birmingham relievers — Bennett Sousa, Anderson Severino, Lane Ramsey, Ofreidy Gomez and Peter Tago — have joined the Knights, along with the recent additions of two veterans, Carl Edwards Jr. and Kevin McCarthy. Severino pitched two scoreless innings in Jacksonville, with five punchouts. The flame-throwing right hander now has seven scoreless innings for the Knights, with five hits, four walks and 12 strikeouts.
But a lot of relievers were unscored upon in Jacksonville, including Tanner Banks (3 IP), Edwards (2.1), Matt Foster (1), McCarthy (2.1), Kodi Medeiros (1), Ramsey (2), Hunter Schryver (1), Tago (4) and Nik Turley (2).
Alex McRae joined the scoreless pitching party, with five innings of two-hit shutout ball in his start in Jacksonville.
The Home Stretch
The Knights finish the season with six at home against the Durham Bulls, five at home versus the Norfolk Tides and then five on the road in Memphis.
Photo credit: Laura Wolff/Charlotte Knights
Want to know right away when we publish a new article? Type your email address in the box on the right-side bar (or at the bottom on a mobile device) and click “create subscription.” Our list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time. Also, consider supporting FutureSox on Patreon! You can get early access to special articles and Patreon-only posts, in addition to more benefits.
Shop our exclusive merchandise! Show your support with FutureSox apparel.
It would appear that Ruben Tejada has two chances to be a member of the White Sox 26-man active postseason roster, slim and none.
Postseason eligibility rule: In a typical season, any player who is on the 40-man roster or 60-day injured list as of 11:59 p.m. ET on Aug. 31 is eligible for the postseason. Those on the restricted list at that point are also eligible if they haven’t been suspended for performance-enhancing drugs during that season. I’m not sure if there are any ‘tweaks’ in the eligibility rule for 2021.
According to the White Sox own official transaction site, Tejada wasn’t even a member of the organization until September 5th when they inked him to a minor league free agent deal. He not only missed the deadline by 5 days but clearly wasn’t on the 40-man roster either, something that would be problematic even now without another DFA to a member on the reserve list which is currently full.
Thanks for the feedback. Good stuff. Just hard to understand why they’d add him, when they’re already swimming in middle infielders in Charlotte, if there wasn’t some mechanism to press him into service in an emergency.