Nick Nastrini had two starts with the White Sox, one promising, one messy, after having a similar split of his two outings at Triple-A Charlotte. After a late spring case of pneumonia, he’s been sitting in the low-90s while occasionally popping 95 mph, and generally not looked as sharp as he did while pitching worthy of a rotation spot in spring.
Thinking Nastrini isn’t quite ready as a major league starter in his present condition isn’t exactly an outlier opinion among league evaluators, but for a 3-18 White Sox team that’s quietly veteran-laden, he was someone worth watching develop on a team that’s struggling to be worth watching.
He was optioned on Monday after the aforementioned messy start to make room for reliever John Brebbia’s return, and between the 15-day minimum stay in the minors and Pedro Grifol leaning toward Chris Flexen starting on Friday, it’s at least a temporary boot from the rotation for Nastrini. But Grifol certainly did not term the move as a rebuke to the idea of Nastrini getting a lot of starts in Chicago this season, but rather the fallout of roster machinations and searching for optionable players.
“Everybody else that we have on this active roster right now is somebody we need either in the pen or rotation,” said Grifol, who will effectively just have a regular eight-man pen in Minneapolis if the goal is to hold Flexen out until Friday. “Nastrini has options, he did a really good job here, we haven’t seen the last of him. He’s a big-time part of the future, I told him that.”
Grifol didn’t get into specific plans for Nastrini’s next two weeks in Charlotte, but if he got extended days between starts, it would jibe with Grifol’s stated consideration for limiting his workload. Nastrini has yet to throw 120 innings in a professional season.
“We’re actually in a good spot especially compared to last year when we had those five guys and only one guy in Triple-A we would bring up,” Grifol said. “The most important part to this whole thing is making sure these guys start the season without having to shut them down because of workload. We’re in a good spot with starters. These two guys are really important to us because they’re part of the present and the future. And [Mike Clevinger and Brad Keller] are getting close, too. You can never have too much starting pitching, especially when you have guys you have to monitor workload like [Garrett] Crochet and these young guys.”
– For not the first time in life, a window to Danny Mendick becoming a White Sox infield regular for a spell has opened because of injury and underperformance elsewhere, mostly at third base while Yoán Moncada is expected to be out until the All-Star break. The 30-year-old former 22nd round pick is still striving to hit his first arbitration payday, but has been around enough to effectively hold court with the media.
It’s always easier to speak compellingly when coming off a 13-for-33 showing with six home runs in his last nine Triple-A games. But Mendick had talking points for each kind of baseball viewer.
He had a technical explanation for why he’s hitting for more power. After tearing the ACL in his right knee in 2022, Mendick went through a stretch of time where he wasn’t comfortable loading on that back leg in his swing. Now that his leg is at full strength again, the experience gave him clear insight into when and when he has not loaded up in his back hip, ready to explode and drive the baseball.
“I see the ball well and I just turn off of it,” Mendick said. “I never had the ability to feel what it was like to not be loaded and now be loaded. I came in and my ACL, I know I wasn’t loaded into my hip. Now, I know what it feels like to be loaded into my hip. I never had the opportunity to know what it felt like to not be loaded. When I figured that out and now I feel the difference, that’s night and day.”
Mendick also delivered straight talk about the state of the offense that would appeal to a broad audience. He can afford to be a bit more forthright than the average new arrival, since he went through spring training with this same player group.
“I want to be here helping these guys try to win,” Mendick said. “At least in the clubhouse, it looks like energy is still good. But we have to get out there and play with confidence. We can’t be timid. We go out there and hit the ball hard, run the bases hard. Realistically you look at these teams, you gotta hit homers, you gotta hit doubles, you gotta slug. We’ll play the small ball when it needs to be, for sure. We have to go up there and hit the ball hard. Make it known that we are here to stay.”
As he said, it sounds good in the clubhouse at least. It’ll look better if he can help turn things around on the field.
– Despite two calf strains early into his White Sox tenure, John Brebbia shouldn’t have any real pitching restrictions. The calf issue never bothered him on the mound.
"The throwing has been max effort the entire time,” Brebbia said. “I've never had to dial it back from that. So that's always been good. Intensities are different in a bullpen versus a live BP versus a game. But I've never had any hold up from being able to pitch. It was just those first few days of not chasing after a PFP or something like that. It was really the only thing I had to watch the effort on."
First Pitch
TV: NBC Sports Chicago and Fox Sports 1
Lineups:
| White Sox | Twins | |
|---|---|---|
| Nicky Lopez, 2B | 1 | Alex Kiriloff, 1B |
| Robbie Grossman, LF | 2 | Edouard Julien, 2B |
| Eloy Jiménez, DH | 3 | Trevor Larnach, LF |
| Gavin Sheets, RF | 4 | Ryan Jeffers, C |
| Andrew Vaughn, 1B | 5 | Max Kepler, RF |
| Paul DeJong, SS | 6 | Willi Castro, SS |
| Dominic Fletcher,. CF | 7 | Carlos Santana, DH |
| Danny Mendick, 3B | 8 | Jose Miranda, 3B |
| Korey Lee,. C | 9 | Austin Martin, CF |
| Jonathan Cannon | SP | Chris Paddack |
