Pregame notes: An opportunity at a brain-melting series victory

Grady Sizemore said he never had any plans of managing going into this season, nor up until Chris Getz broached him with the opportunity last Thursday morning. But helming a game where your pitching staff walks 11 batters but your team still wins by 10 runs changes a man.

That or all the baby powder/ketchup mixture Sizemore wound up ingesting Monday night.

"I am having fun," Sizemore said. "Last night was a great example of that, but these last three or four days have been some of my happiest, most fun games in baseball."

Sizemore said he fell asleep re-watching video of Monday's triumph, though from the way he described the purpose of re-watching games from a coaching standpoint and seeing things from a different angle, it seems like the main deviation from his normal routine was how many fond memories this game produced.

In four days time, the notion of managing isn't something foreign to Sizemore anymore, but something you can ask him about having a career in.

"I hope so," Sizemore said.

My former Athletic colleague Jon Greenberg, who plays a snarky jerk on Twitter but has been tremendously supportive of Sox Machine, offered a theory of human behavior that could begin to explain the transformation at play.

Miguel Vargas has had a pretty wacky two weeks, going from being dealt from an elite MLB organization that didn't seem to have an everyday role for him, to a rebuilding club in the middle of historic levels of losing, to seeing much of the coaching staff he was just adjusting to--including Mike Tosar, who was his signing scout as an international prospect with the Dodgers--fired and replaced.

"Honestly, I wasn't expecting it," Vargas said. "I was just here for a week and I was getting engaged with them, then I checked and saw the news. I feel sad for them but now we're moving on to new coaches and trying to make it happen."

It hasn't happened yet for Vargas in a White Sox uniform, as he's 3-for-36 at the plate. But it's not because he's swinging at bad pitches. Per Statcast, his 18.4 percent chase rate in a Sox uniform would be one of the five-lowest marks in the sport projected over a full season, right behind Aaron Judge. He's doing the work to find hittable pitches, now he has to start timing them up.

"Obviously I wasn't playing that much in LA," Vargas said. "Coming in here now, I'm trying to be consistent with my pre-game work, in the cage and the field to build good habits and be ready to play every day."

If you're looking for a reason to give Vargas some extra grace to get it going, he is sort of one of us. The White Sox Cuban connection is something he was aware of back when he was still living on the island, and he would watch Sox games when possible because he knew there was usually a Cuban star on the roster. He has some young memories of Orlando "El Duque" Hernández in a Sox uniform, and watched a lot of Alexei Ramírez as a kid in Havana.

Michael Soroka threw 15 fastballs on Tuesday in his first bullpen session since going on the injured list for a shoulder strain over the All-Star break. Drew Thorpe (flexor strain) and Jordan Leasure (shoulder impingement) both are scheduled to begin a throwing program on Thursday, after each completed their plyometric program on Tuesday.

Do I know what their plyometric program entailed? Obviously not. Do I think it's interesting that the White Sox wanted us to know that they're using plyometrics in their rehab process? Mildly, sure.

Yankees starter Nestor Cortes has a 9.26 ERA over his last five starts, with opposing hitters touting a .360/.412/.670 batting line against him over that span. But he has still held left-handers to a .220/.273/.320 split over the season, so putting Gavin Sheets and Andrew Benintendi in the middle of the order against him (as hot as they've been of very recent) will test which trend is stronger.

Gordon Beckham will be filling in for Steve Stone as the color commentator for the TV broadcasts for the coming road trip to Houston and San Francisco. John Schriffen is off for the Giants series, so Len Kasper will fill in for the TV broadcast, while it will be a Connor McKnight/Darrin Jackson radio pairing for those games.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Yankees

TV: NBCSCH

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