After being outhomered 6-1 in a pair of losses to the Minnesota Twins, the White Sox lineup desperately needs power, so Eloy Jiménez's return for this afternoon's series finale should be exactly what the team needs.
Unless it's the Jiménez who was slugging .333 and beating two-thirds of his batted balls into the ground before he injured his knee stepping on the wrong side of first base in April.
Either way, Jiménez is starting in left field and batting sixth today, in between Gavin Sheets and Yoán Moncada.
Jiménez is the White Sox's best hope at putting the ball over the fence on a regular basis, but for as long as that timing at the plate proves elusive, then he's going to be contributing to the White Sox's chief flaws -- suboptimal batted-ball direction and defense that's barely playable in left among other things.
And that makes him dangerous.
The White Sox made room for Jiménez on the 26-man roster by placing Jake Burger on the 10-day injured list with a bone bruise in his right hand, and on the 40-man by transferring Danny Mendick to the 60-day IL.
Burger first suffered the hand injury when he was plunked on June 13, and it's been a struggle for him since. He's hitting .167/.231/.278 with one walk and 14 strikeouts over 39 plate appearances, and he's been limited to one plate appearance over the last eight days. With Moncada finally showing signs of hitting the ball with authority, Burger's ability cover third base isn't worth rostering in and of itself.
In two other roster moves, Jimmy Lambert is back, taking the place of Vince Velasquez, who moved to the 15-day injured list with a blister on his right index finger. Velasquez had a run of useful multi-inning appearances end abruptly this month, as he gave up five runs over 2⅓ innings in the lowest of leverage.
And we'll just use this thread as the...
First Pitch
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