For the first time this spring, White Sox baseball was on the radio Friday. It was nice to hear a ballgame on the ride home from work, even if it was just the last three innings of a meaningless exhibition game against the Cleveland Indians.
Looking at the box score, Nomar Mazara may have been the only player in the starting lineup who will actually be with the Sox when the season starts -- unless Nick Madrigal makes the club out of camp.
The Sox won the game, 8-3, and the story once again was ... Yermin Mercedes. I joined the broadcast in the top of the seventh inning, and I apparently just missed Mercedes hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the sixth that turned a 3-0 Sox deficit into a 4-3 lead.
Mercedes is now 4 for 9 with two homers this spring in his quest to earn the job as the 26th man on the Sox's roster.
In other news from the game, Andrew Vaughn, the Sox's top pick in the 2019 draft, made two plate appearances. He walked his first time up, then added a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Vaughn is probably going to start the season at Double-A Birmingham, and he'll be one of the guys in the system to keep a close eye on throughout the year. Most likely, he'll be in the minors for all of 2020, but it wouldn't be a surprise if he were knocking on the door of coming to Chicago by the time September gets here.
Edwin Encarnacion, the incumbent DH, is on a one-year contract with an option year. The guess here is Encarnacion will be a member of the Sox until Vaughn is ready to take his spot. Will that be in 2021 or 2022? We'll find out.
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