White Sox trade Austin Slater to Yankees

The White Sox made their first deal of trade deadline season on Wednesday, sending outfielder Austin Slater to the New York Yankees in exchange for right-handed pitcher Gage Ziehl.

Ziehl, 22, was selected by the Yankees in the fourth round of the 2024 draft out of the University of Miami. He's pitched in 16 games this season, 15 of them starts. Fourteen of those appearances came for Low-A Tampa. Across 82.1 innings, he has a 4.15 ERA with 70 strikeouts and 14 walks. 

The Sox have assigned Ziehl to High-A Winston-Salem.

Slater batted .236/.299/.423 with five homers and 11 RBIs in 51 games with the Sox. As a right-handed batter, he's good at one thing: hitting left-handed pitching.

Against lefties this season, Slater posted a .261/.338/.522 slash line that included all five of his homers. For any Yankees fans who are stumbling across this blog, you are not getting a complete player or an everyday player. But you are getting an outfielder who can fill a very specific role.

Platoon Slater against lefties, and he will contribute.

Who knows about Ziehl? He's in his first year in pro ball, and I won't pretend to know what his future is. Most of these type of acquisitions don't work out, but you never know.

White Sox 9, Phillies 3

The Sox used a seven-run seventh inning to beat the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday afternoon. The South Siders took two out of three in the series, and they are now 8-4 since the All-Star break.

Four players age 25 or younger hit home runs for the Sox in this win. Kyle Teel and Colson Montgomery each hit solo homers. Miguel Vargas and Edgar Quero each hit 3-run homers in the decisive seventh inning.

If you had to draw it up, you would want the young guys to be at the forefront of whatever success this team has the rest of the way.

The Sox are 40-69. 

On vacation until July 28 ...

 Blogging will resume when I return from vacation.

 

Mark Buehrle statue unveiling: Some photos from July 11

It might be the only baseball game I attend all season. The White Sox honored 2005 World Series hero Mark Buehrle with a statue on the right field concourse before the July 11 game against the Cleveland Guardians, won 5-4 by the Sox in 11 innings.

Here are some photos, all snapped by my girlfriend Jen Bubis:

Buehrle mimics the statue for the cameras.

 

Buehrle delivers his speech Friday night.

 

The scoreboard highlights some of Buehrle's career accomplishments.

 

Buehrle with his wife during the ceremony.

 

 

Several former teammates were there to support Buehrle, including World Series MVP Jermaine Dye.

 

And relief pitcher Neal Cotts, who hasn't changed in 20 years.

 

Pitcher Freddy Garcia (center) and utility player Pablo Ozuna with the dreads

                                    

 

Buehrle's longtime teammate in the starting rotation, Jon Garland

 

All the way from Japan, second baseman Tadahito Iguchi (with photo bomb from reliever Luis Vizcaino, with earring)

 

 

 

Relief pitcher Cliff Politte

We will never forget our closer, Bobby Jenks. RIP.

 

 

Jenks is memorialized at the World Series monument.

 

A closer look at the Jenks memorial.

 

 

Former players stand with Buehrle after the statue unveiling.

Bobby Jenks, World Series champion closer, dies at 44

My uncle and I were in attendance at U.S. Cellular Field when Bobby Jenks made his major league debut. It was July 6, 2005, against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Ninth inning, White Sox leading 7-2.

Jenks walked the first batter he faced on four pitches.

However, his fastball was lighting up the stadium radar gun at 98-99 mph. I remember telling my uncle, "If this guy can put that pitch in the strike zone, he's going to be fine."

Three batters later, Jenks had two strikeouts and three outs, and the Sox had a stress-free victory. Little did we know how significant the addition of Jenks to the roster would be.

A little more than three months later, the then-24-year-old right-hander was on the mound in a much more stressful situation.

It was the ninth inning of Game 4 of the World Series. The Sox were leading the Houston Astros 1-0, looking for a sweep and their first championship since 1917. Tying run on second base, two outs. 

Jenks got the out he needed for the Sox, getting Orlando Palmeiro to bounce out to shortstop Juan Uribe. The Sox were champions! It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

On Saturday at my mom's house, my uncle and I were discussing our memories of Jenks' big-league debut, which happened 20 years ago today. Our family gathered this weekend to mark the Fourth of July and my 49th birthday, which is Monday. During our celebration, we got the bad news that Jenks died Friday at age 44, after a battle with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer.

This is a sad time for everyone who is part of the White Sox community. There is only one Sox pitcher to record the last out of the World Series in the past 108 years. That player is Jenks, and that moment will live forever, even though the man who created it is now gone.

Jenks also closed out the division-clinching game in 2005 against the Detroit Tigers, and the clinching game of the American League Division Series against the Boston Red Sox. He appeared in all four games of the 2005 World Series, earning two saves.

By 2011, Jenks was out of baseball -- a back injury ending his time in the majors. It was not a long career, but it was a successful one. Here are some of his other accolades:

• 173 saves, second-most in Sox history
• consecutive 40-save seasons (2006-07)
• consecutive All-Star selections (2006-07)
• five saves and a 2.00 ERA in seven postseason appearances
• retired a team-record 41 batters in 2007 (a record later broken by teammate Mark Buehrle)
• had the fifth-most saves in baseball from 2006 to 2010

Jenks was a pitcher ahead of his time. In today's baseball, nearly every team in the league has a stable of relief pitchers who rush the ball up to home plate at 95 mph or more. But in 2005, there were only a handful of guys in the league like that. It got your attention when someone was hitting 98 to 102 mph with consistency. 

Jenks' fastball had both high-end velocity and a late cut that made him very difficult to square up. He also had a 12-to-6 breaking ball that he could throw for strikes with consistency. That's a good recipe for a strong closer in any era, but especially in that era, where 98 mph on the gun was uncommon.

Unfortunately, Jenks' death comes a week before the Sox are set to honor the 20th anniversary of the 2005 World Series championship. Events are scheduled throughout next week's home series against the Cleveland Guardians (July 10-13). All Sox fans had hoped Jenks would be well enough to attend those ceremonies. Sadly, that is not the case.

Fortunately, Jenks was in Chicago for SoxFest in 2015, and my girlfriend was able to get his autograph in her 2005 scrapbook (see picture). That signature has always been valuable, but it's a little more cherished right now.

Here's how I would sum up Bobby Jenks: If I had to pick one White Sox relief pitcher from my nearly 50 years of fandom to get three outs in the ninth inning, Jenks is the guy I'd want on the mound.

With all due respect to Bobby Thigpen, Roberto Hernandez and Liam Hendriks, Jenks is the best closer I've had the privilege of rooting for on the South Side of Chicago.

RIP, Bobby Jenks.

Happy Fourth of July from The Baseball Kid!

 

We are blessed to live in the greatest country in the world. Enjoy the celebration, everyone!