Offense, offense, and more offense \u2014 that\u2019s been the name of the game for the South Siders this spring. The White Sox rolled into Wednesday\u2019s action having smacked the most hits of any MLB team, sitting first in runs, doubles, and RBIs. So far, the Good Guys have prioritized contact over patience. While that aggression has kept the walk total at a modest 21, it\u2019s also keeping the strikeouts down. At just 38 punchouts, they\u2019re sitting in the bottom half of the league in K\u2019s, ensuring they put the ball in play more often than not. It\u2019s all added up to a team that currently sits atop the league in batting average, OPS, and slugging.<\/p>\n
Leading that charge is catcher Edgar Quero, who\u2019s slashing .667\/.714\/.833 and tops the squad with five RBIs. Quero, an offensive-first backstop, told CHSN\u2019s Chuck Garfien last week that he spent his winter working on framing and defense, but we saw a bit of a lapse yesterday when he blew a rundown at third and threw it over Lenyn Sosa\u2019s head. It\u2019s exactly the kind of fundamental breakdown that has plagued this team for the last several years, and while Spring Training is for working out kinks, that\u2019s the specific stuff that needs cleaning up.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Swiss Army Knife Brooks Baldwin, who\u2019s basically forcing his way onto the plane to Chicago at this point. Sporting a massive 1.143 SLG, he isn\u2019t just making contact; he\u2019s making noise. With that kind of production, Skipper Will Venable is going to have a hard time finding a reason not to pencil him into the 26-man roster come March.<\/p>\n
As far as prospects are concerned, keep your eyes on William Bergolla. He\u2019s 4-for-6 with two doubles and a bag. He doesn\u2019t strike out, he plays solid middle infield and he\u2019s got wheels. The 21-year-old came over in the Tanner Banks trade at the 2024 deadline. He\u2019s the type of \u201chigh floor\u201d contact hitter this lineup has desperately missed.<\/p>\n
On the mound, it\u2019s not all doom and gloom, though the contrast is noticeable. While the 3.43 ERA is solid enough for a top-five spot, the 1.52 WHIP shows the pitchers still shaking off some rust. However, the hurlers are at least missing bats, tied near the top of the pack with the Cubs at 49 strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Today, we get the first Cactus League start for Davis Martin, the \u201cglue guy\u201d who is now the longest-tenured player on the team following the Luis Robert Jr. trade. Martin is coming off his first full year as a starter, having tossed 142 2\/3 innings in 2025 with a 4.10 ERA. This season, we\u2019re looking for his six-pitch mix to generate a few more \u201cred\u201d circles on the Statcast chart.<\/p>\n
The Sox will face off against Nick Lodolo, who makes his spring debut for the Reds. Lodolo hasn\u2019t quite hit those 7th-overall-pick expectations yet, but he\u2019s coming off a strong 3.33 ERA season and features a heavy four-pitch arsenal. He has a pretty good curve and sinker that can really tie up hitters.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the managers line up their teams this afternoon.<\/p>\n
For your Chicago White Sox:<\/p>\n
And for old friend Terry Francona\u2019s Cincinnati Reds:<\/p>\n
Now for the bad news: it\u2019s a lean day for media coverage. The only way to follow the live action is through an MLB.TV or MLB+ subscription. If you\u2019ve got one, you can tune into the Reds\u2019 radio broadcast at 2:05 p.m. CST to see if the Sox bats can keep the heater going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Offense, offense, and more offense \u2014 that\u2019s been the name of the game for the South Siders this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,72543,535,50,4259,4,77173,536],"class_list":["post-592702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-reds","tag-baseball","tag-chicago-white-sox-discussions","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cincinnatireds","tag-mlb","tag-other-game-threads","tag-reds"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116132975922674573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}