White Sox Minor Keys: Sept. 5, 2024

To knock things out in descending order of priority: yes, new White Sox farmhand Trey McGough is distantly related to Diamondbacks right-hander Scott McGough. He has a childhood memory of meeting the fellow Triple-A reliever at a family reunion.

And yes, while not being on the 40-man roster is a hurdle to McGough's major league arrival, he is Rule 5 eligible this winter. Since it doesn't take a ton of projection to see a 26-year-old with a 2.10 ERA over 73 mostly Triple-A innings sliding into a major league bullpen, the White Sox will need to add him at some point if they want a real look at what they got for Eloy Jiménez.

And yes, since the Charlotte Knights were playing the Norfolk Tides on the trade deadline, McGough did wind up changing dugouts on July 30. The last minute nature of the deal meant that McGough was playing catch on the field 15 minutes after the deadline, thinking he was staying put.

"A surreal moment, because you definitely know why it's happening at that time," McGough said of being pulled out of catch play. "I had to walk in, talk to the front office with the O's, walked behind and into this clubhouse. And I've been over here since."

McGough was originally drafted by the Pirates and claimed off waivers by the Orioles in late 2022 while he was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, so he's stopped being married to where he fits in his current organization's plans a while ago, opting for the more general motto "prove yourself and you'll get the opportunity."

Standing at a lean 6-foot-3 and sitting 91-93 mph when I watched him in person, McGough is very much the type who charms you by compiling zeroes, rather than the method with which he compiles them. He's been noticeably homer-avoidant (19 in 257 pro innings) even while he was still starting, but it's not hard to imagine how throwing challenge heaters when behind in the count will not be his friend at the highest level.

Flashing his curveball and change for strikes is a mitigation route, but McGough is at this level and he's being written about because of the low-80s slider he taught himself after the 2019 season and spent all of the COVID shutdown developing. The initial inspiration came from a source that's been cited for countless pitching breakthroughs over the years.

"I kind of Googled some slider grips and the first one I tried felt pretty good," McGough said.

Most reports sell how effective McGough's slider is to left-handers, and they are indeed slugging .202 against him this season, but he originally designed it to give himself something to work inside on right-handed hitters. As a result, he's pretty proficient at backfoot his slider, which originated as a gyro, added sweep, and sometimes will perform as a cutter depending on his intent.

"Right now I just call it a slider," McGough said. "Every once in a while it's a sweeper and it go out to 15 [inches of horizontal movement], and every once in a while it's almost like a cutter sometimes at like 10 [inches of inverted vertical break] and 10 horizontal, but I would say for the most it averages out at 10, which I think they consider a regular slider these days. I'm not really sure."

Out of compact arm swing that lends some deception but also feels natural for McGough, it's worked consistently in multi-inning outings with the Knights that always call on him to face plenty of right-handers. Maybe only the slider truly projects to be plus, but he can only successfully run this act in the International League for so long before it demands a bigger venue.

Charlotte 5, Norfolk 3

• Tim Elko went 1-for-5 with two strikeouts.
• Colson Montgomery was 2-for-4 with a homer and a strikeout.
• Oscar Colás, 1-for-4 with a homer.
• Adam Hackenberg returned to Triple-A, singling twice and striking out twice.
• Sean Burke: 5 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 9 K, 1 HR, 56 of 82 pitches for strikes.
• Steven Wilson: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K

Highlights:

*Burke got 18 whiffs. His Statcast rundown is what you want.

*Montgomery turned around 92.2 mph at 107.1 mph.

Birmingham 4, Pensacola 1

• Rikuu Nishida went 1-for-3 with a walk.
• Wilfred Veras, 1-for-4 with a K.
• DJ Gladney was 0-for-4.
• So was Jacob Gonzalez, who struck out twice.
• Terrell Tatum went 2-for-3 with a stolen base.
• Juan Carela: 5 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 43 of 74 pitches for strikes.

Winston-Salem 4, Greenville 3

• Eddie Park went 1-for-4 with a walk and two strikeouts.
• Caden Connor went 2-for-5 with two doubles and a strikeout.
• Casey Sauckie was 2-for-5 with one double and a strikeout.
• Calvin Harris, 1-for-4 with a walk and a strikeout.
• Ryan Galanie went 1-for-3 with two walks.
• Luke Bell cut his ERA in half to 18.00 with two scoreless innings.

Kannapolis 7, Salem 3

• Sam Antonacci went 3-for-5 with a strikeout, and 1-for-2 on the basepaths.
• George Wolkow was 1-for-5 with two strikeouts.
• T.J. McCants matched him, but his hit was a double.
• Ronny Hernandez went 1-for-3 with two walks.
• Jeral Perez, 1-for-4 with two strikeouts.
• Ryan Burrowes went 0-for-3 with a sac fly and two strikeouts.
• Aaron Combs: 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 1 WP, 18 of 25 pitches for strikes.