On the surface, Eloy Jiménez is a player who was on the active roster just this Tuesday and suffered an in-game injury for which the team had yet to provide a formal timeline. His status is traditionally what we might call newsy. And Luis Robert Jr. is just a guy who has been out since the first week of April with a hip flexor strain and happened to hit a backfield homer off some poor kid in the complex league the other day.
But given their respective long-term placement in the team's plans, which update should be provided first?
-- Pedro Grifol said Robert is going to play a few more complex league games, and then fly out to meet up with the Charlotte Knights on Sunday, provided there are no issues nor setbacks.
The Knights are currently in Nashville, and whether Robert will be appearing on the Sox Machine podcast, or earning some babysitting money while Jim enjoys a night out on the town, is TBD.
If that schedule holds, Robert will begin a rehab assignment with the Knights on Tuesday.
-- Steven Wilson may be a middle reliever for a non-contending team, but he's got three years of team control remaining after this season and I'm just belaboring the point. Grifol said he should be ready to return from his back strain after 15 days on the injured list. Wilson is first eligible to be activated just before the Cubs series at Wrigley on June 3.
-- Jiménez's left hamstring strain is going to keep him out for a while.
“It’ll be an extended period of time," Grifol said. "It’s a hamstring, and he beat it up pretty good. Exactly how much time? Who knows? But it’ll be an extended period of time.”
Whether "beat it up pretty good" is colloquial for Grade 1 or Grade 2 is unknown at this time, but Grifol compared the situation to Robert's recovery timeline, which was initially projected at 6-8 weeks back in April. With unreliable health, diminishing offensive returns, and a pricey $16.5 million club option looming for next season, Jiménez was already at a point where a return to form this season would just usher him out of town by August.
The Sox are not getting that, but instead a campaign of uneven performance and multiple baserunning injuries that has served to drive home why they were already interested in getting off this ride at next opportunity. Even in the immediate, it's hard to miss how Jiménez's IL placement frees up Dominic Fletcher--their best healthy outfield defender--to play center field, with the only drawback being a loss of offensive production that looks more theoretical than tangible in the aggregate.
Of course, as these things have gone for him, Jiménez had just started clicking offensively when his injury happened. He was hitting .321/.387/.500 over his last eight games. Grifol was noncommittal on how much run Fletcher will get in center, saying he'll keep things open to mix and match.
-- In keeping with someone who did not have a spring training, Mike Clevinger has yet to throw 80 pitches in a start, with Grifol noting that he's "hit a wall, and I’ve actually pushed him beyond that wall," in his three outings.
"But I’m expecting him to be stronger today than he was the previous two starts, for sure, and I’m expecting his work capacity to be higher.”
First Pitch: White Sox vs. Orioles
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Lineups:
| Orioles | White Sox | |
|---|---|---|
| Gunnar Henderson, SS | 1 | Tommy Pham, RF |
| Adley Rutschman, C | 2 | Nicky Lopez, 2B |
| Ryan O'Hearn, DH | 3 | Andrew Vaughn, 1B |
| Anthony Santander, RF | 4 | Gavin Sheets, DH |
| Jordan Westburg, 3B | 5 | Paul DeJong, SS |
| Colton Cowser, LF | 6 | Andrew Benintendi, LF |
| Ryan Mountcastle, 1B | 7 | Korey Lee, C |
| Cedric Mullins, CF | 8 | Dominic Fletcher, CF |
| Jorge Mateo | 9 | Danny Mendick, 3B |
| Grayson Rodriguez | SP | Mike Clevinger |
