


The White Sox jumped on Smeltzer quickly, loading the bases on a one-out single by Moncada and consecutive walks from Robert and Jose Abreu. Anderson reached on a grounder that ate up Luis Arraez at first and Yoan Moncada followed with a walk before Engel - who entered the game as a defensive replacement for Luis Robert (light-headedness) - sent a 3-2 pitch into the left-field bleachers for a 6-2 lead. Tyler Duffey and Caleb Thielbar combined to throw 2⅓ scoreless innings before manager Rocco Baldelli turned to Jax with one out in the seventh. He was charged with two runs on five hits and four walks and struck out two. Kopech allowed five baserunners in the second, third and fourth before registering his first 1-2-3 inning in the fifth. And while still in third place behind Cleveland, the White Sox have pulled 2½ games closer to the division-leading Twins.Ĭleveland, a 6-5 winner against Detroit on Friday, is 2½ games back. Since then, Chicago is 10-6 and has won four straight. It really didn’t.”Īfter losing six of eight games to end June 5½ games out of first, the White Sox used a team meeting to focus on going into the all-star break on a roll.

But the Jax inning, one pitch and the inning changes very quickly. The innings that we didn’t get through, a couple home runs, they don’t help. “We had chances to get through these innings, too. “Performance considerations factor into everything that we do, but our guys were lined up to get outs today,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. It was the eighth home run allowed by Pagan, who still leads the Twins with nine saves, in 31⅔ innings. Pagan (3-4) relieved Smeltzer in the fourth and struck out the first two batters he faced before Anderson sent a drive into the bullpen in left center, just out of the reach of a leaping Nick Gordon, for a 3-2 lead. Liam Hendriks pitched the ninth for his 19th save in 22 opportunities. Kopech (3-6) gutted out five innings on 89 pitches and earned the victory. “I would have liked to go another few (innings) there. But at least the Pirates will get an extra year of player control in the bargain, and they won't have to worry about whether they promoted Alvarez too quickly.“Some days you battle and things go your way,” Smeltzer said.
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Matt Wieters, another top college pick who got only one full year in the minors, did get a couple months at AAA at the beginning of this year and has been mediocre so far in the big leagues, so even that rather conservative promotion schedule might not be a panacea for Alvarez. Gordon's example shows the potential hazards in moving a player like Alvarez up too quickly, and Alvarez could probably stand to have at least a couple months at Class AAA before he's called up. The Pirates seem likely to resist the temptation to promote Alvarez straight to the majors next year, and I think they're right to do that. His stint at Lynchburg raised plenty of questions about his ability to control the strike zone, but his play so far as Class AA Altoona (.326/.411/.560) closely resembles Gordon's Class AA line. It appears Gordon could have used more time in the minors, and we'd do well to consider that with Alvarez. It's certainly possible that his hip is the main reason he hasn't played well this year, but then he also didn't play all that well even before that. This season, Gordon had hip surgery in April, went on the DL, and hasn't hit when he's even been available. The next season, he drew more walks but still didn't show the power you'd hope for from a second overall pick. 327/.427/.588 for a full season, which didn't exactly dampen the Royals' enthusiasm for him, so they made him their starting third baseman the following year. Instead, the Royals started him at Class AA Wichita the following year.
Alex gordon game used pro#
Like Alvarez, Gordon didn't play pro ball in the year he was drafted. Like Alvarez, Gordon was selected with the second overall pick in the draft as a 21-year-old third baseman who had pretty much been the best thing ever in college. I mention this here because the parallels between Gordon and Pedro Alvarez are pretty interesting. The article doesn't reach any firm conclusions, but suggests that one possible reason Gordon hasn't set the world on fire is that he didn't receive enough development time in the minors. Baseball Prospectus has an interesting article ( subscription only) about what in the world happened to the Royals' Alex Gordon.
