Pregame notes: ‘We get to fight back’

Grady Sizemore heard Lenyn Sosa's name mentioned, and didn't need to wait to hear the full question.

"We talked with Sos, I think he knew right away that he screwed up," Sizemore said. "We want guys — I talked about this earlier — kind of knowing where you’re gonna go before the ball’s in play. Knowing if a ball’s to my left or right, what the reaction’s gonna be, who’s gonna have command and I think Sos, we talked to him, he knew it wasn’t the play we wanted — it’s Nicky [Lopez]’s ball.

But again, I’m not super mad at it, because he’s being aggressive. He’s just going out there reacting to a ball, trying to make a play. But we want him to know that that’s the shortstop’s ball, he’s moving that way, so don’t try to do too much. I think he’s just trying to do too much out there. Unfortunately, that one cost us. But again, it’s an aggressive mistake, I can live with aggressive mistakes."

Brooks Baldwin is dealing with a sore right hand that will continue to keep him unavailable for the next few days, which has prompted some even more heavy usage of Sosa in the past few days including both halves of Wednesday's doubleheader. With Jacob Amaya getting his first start on Friday night, Sizemore now wonders if riding Sosa so heavily was a mistake, but reiterated multiple times that he hasn't been benched.

"I probably shouldn’t have had him in there yesterday," Sizemore said. "This isn’t a frustration thing with Sos. He’s been really consistent for us on multiple spots and given us good at-bats, and that’s one of those things where I talked to him. [Doug Sisson] talked to him, [Justin Jirschele], we all followed up. It’s nothing like, we don’t need to get on him. He knows he screwed up and I know that he’ll learn from it and we’ll be stronger from it."

Maybe this was obvious, but Nick Nastrini is already listed among probable starters for next week's series in Baltimore after his strong outing on Thursday.

"We’re gonna try to continue to build off of that," said Sizemore.

Nastrini gave the sort of postgame compliment of Korey Lee's receiving that winds up being revealing about why the coaching staff was tepid about increasing his playing time in the opening weeks of the season.

"The Korey that caught me today was not the Korey who caught me a few months ago," Nastrini said. "He has taken a huge, huge step forward, just in his communication especially. Him and I, we live somewhat close to each other in the offseason so I have got to watch him play as he has been going up as well. I kept tabs on him and he’s really, really grown as a catcher. I’m super, super fired up for him."

At the same time, Sizemore makes it clear that the transition to No. 1 catcher reps also needed to take place eventually for Lee's game-managing to really take a jump.

"Defensively it was probably a bonus for Korey to have someone like [Martín Maldonado] around to teach him and to learn from him," Sizemore said. "Now that door's opened up for him to be the everyday guy and to get more consistent reps and I think that's why we're seeing a little bit better version of him, just because he knows he's going to be out there everyday."

Of course, as is the case with all things 2024 White Sox, they're losing too much and playing too horribly for intangible development to really be trusted.

"Here we are now, our next four series are all playoff teams," Sizemore said. "This is a challenge for us to go out there and compete with some of the better teams in the league that are fighting for a spot and we get to fight back. We get to hit back and we get to try to wreck their path to the playoffs. That's the challenge that we're going to take on and we're going to go out there, and try to compete with these playoff teams and not just be an easy win."

A primary obstacle to that on Friday night, beyond the worst major league offense of our lifetimes, is left-handed hitters are slugging .519 against Jonathan Cannon, who needs to both command the up-and-in quadrant with his four-seamer and master the action on his seam-effect changeup to neutralize it.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Mets

TV: NBCSCH

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