WHITE SOX HEADLINES OF SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 “Can Turn a 27-Year-Old Into the Perfect ?” … Chris Jones, New York Times “Avisail's big day paces Sox 25- rout of Tigers” … Jason Beck & Kyle Beery, MLB.com “Moncada impresses with career day at plate” … Kyle Beery, Special to MLB.com “Sox look to prospect Fulmer vs. Tigers” … Kyle Beery, Special to MLB.com “A look at the wild numbers behind the White Sox breakout day” … Dan Hayes, CSN Chicago “Still sore, Avisail Garcia looks for strong finish to breakout campaign” … Dan Hayes, CSN Chicago “ reaches base 6 times, scores franchise-tying 5 runs in 17-7 win” … Colleen Kane, Chicago Tribune “White Sox's on six-week surge: 'I'm feeling back to myself'” … Colleen Kane, Chicago Tribune “Moncada, Garcia enjoy career games in White Sox’ rout of Tigers” … Daryl Van Schouwen, Chicago Sun-Times “From start to finish, Renteria pleased with White Sox’ effort” … Daryl Van Schouwen, Chicago Sun-Times “By the numbers: White Sox’s record day proves they’re ahead of Tigers in rebuild… James Fegan, The Athletic “White Sox Insider: What makes a good game caller?… James Fegan, The Athletic Can Baseball Turn a 27-Year-Old Into the Perfect Manager? Take an inside look at the White Sox’s experiment with Justin Jirschele, the youngest in . By Chris Jones / New York Times | September 14, 2017

On Opening Day this spring, Justin Jirschele’s eyes popped wide open at 9 o’clock, and he determined his chances of falling back to sleep — he’s big on percentages — to be zero. “Almost came to the park,” the 27-year-old said. Instead, the youngest manager in professional baseball fixed himself a bowl of cereal and downed it in bed while his new wife, Liz, tried to doze beside him. She has accepted that her marital contract will forever include disturbed nights.

Jirschele (pronounced JURSH-ah-lee) shares his apartment in Concord, N.C., with his 35-year-old pitching coach, Matt Zaleski, and his 28-year-old strength-and-conditioning coach, Goldy Simmons. (Liz was just visiting from their permanent home in Madison, Wis.) After Jirschele watched some videos of deer being stalked to “calm the mind a little bit,” he decided everybody might as well head to work. Together, they bundled into Zaleski’s Subaru and made the short drive to Kannapolis, home of the Intimidators — the Low-A farm team of the — and the first official game of Jirschele’s managerial career. It was 12:10 when they rolled in. First pitch was scheduled for 7:05.

By the standards of his profession, Jirschele is extraordinarily young. His first opposing manager, Marty Malloy of the Lakewood (N.J.) BlueClaws, is 45. His second, when the Rome (Ga.) Braves came to town, was the 59-year-old Randy Ingle, a member of the South Atlantic League Hall of Fame who began managing the year Jirschele was born. “He’s young,” Ingle said, “but if you’re a good baseball person, that’s not too young.”

Jirschele is a good baseball person. His grandfather Don managed amateurs enough to have the ballpark in Clintonville, Wis., named after him. Justin’s father, Mike, spent 36 years in the minors as a player and manager before he became the third-base coach for the in 2014 and earned a ring in 2015. His older brother, Jeremy, played in the Royals’ organization and is now the head coach at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Justin Jirschele has spent his life in baseball clubhouses, including four years playing in the White Sox organization, mostly as a shortstop and . His manager on a High-A team in Winston-Salem, N.C., a genial former named Tommy Thompson — gut, silver hair, ever-present bat in his callused hands, the movie version of a coach — was one of the first to spot his leadership potential. There was something almost surprisingly old-fashioned about Thompson’s hunch, like a fisherman following birds to the fish. “Great baseball blood,” Thompson says. “There’s something about managing that you grow to. I think he’s that guy.”

Jirschele had been promoted to a -A team in Birmingham, Ala., when , then Chicago’s director of player development, sat him down in the dugout before a game and told him that his baseball mind, not his arm or his bat, was his bigger asset, and the organization’s. “He was probably the best player on the field with the least amount of talent,” Capra says. “He did all the little things. That stood out.” The White Sox needed a hitting coach in Great Falls, Mont., to work with their Advanced Rookie-level Voyagers. Did Jirschele want the job?

He was just 24. Capra’s offer was the beginning of an unusual experiment. Maybe the struggling White Sox didn’t have to wait till Jirschele was grizzled. Maybe baseball intelligence can be put on a path of accelerated development just like the game’s young bodies. Maybe managers don’t have to look like guys who hang around dog tracks. Or maybe managers are who they are for a reason, and in them we see an increasingly rare instance of baseball’s ancient practices standing up to modern scrutiny.

Jirschele asked for a little time to think about his choice, even though he had already made it. He called Liz, who was back in school in Wisconsin. She left class to cry a little, the way Sheri Jirschele, Mike’s wife, cried when he called it quits on his own playing career. “It was just the end of a chapter,” Liz says. “I was sad that I couldn’t see him in person, playing for the last time.”

Justin didn’t think much at all about the move, just as he had never given much thought to a life outside the game. “I can’t turn that down,” he said. The opportunity in Montana wouldn’t wait for him. He played one final game, beating out an infield chopper to short for his last hit. “That’s when I knew,” he told me with a wry smile. “A chinker, a cheap hit. That’s how I want to go out, right there.” The next morning, he told Capra he was ready to go to Great Falls. He had passed his first test as a future maker of big decisions.

After Jirschele spent just a year as the Voyagers’ hitting coach, and then another in the same position in Kannapolis, the White Sox deemed him ready to manage. As Zaleski pulled into the parking lot beyond the left-field fence at Intimidators Stadium, Jirschele was about to put himself eight years ahead of even his father’s fast early pace. Mike didn’t manage A- ball until he was 34.

Justin was wearing jeans and cowboy boots when he walked into his office, a wall-size locker across from his neat battleship of a desk. He put four giant bottles of iced tea in his fridge — “That’s my natural geek,” he said, “and better for me than Diet Coke” — and dropped his jeans. Eight minutes after his arrival at the park, he was in uniform. He wore his pants long. He kept the brim of his cap straight and low. The only reason he didn’t look like a player was the absence of a cup.

He took out a blank sheet of white paper and drew a baseball field on it. He began writing the names of his starting lineup in each position, and then he got to work on his batting order. He was confirming what he already knew. “I’ve been thinking about this lineup since March 1,” he said, referring to the start of spring training. It was April 6. At 12:35 p.m., he pulled out his first official lineup card. He took a black Sharpie and began writing nine names in block letters.

BOOKER CF FISHER LF ZAVALA C DULIN 1B RODRIGUEZ DH ADOLFO RF REMILLARD 3B ROMAN 2B MASSEY SS

He walked out of his office and tacked the card to the bulletin board in the hallway. He went back into his office, poured some tea into a plastic cup filled with ice and looked at the clock on his wall. He had 6 hours 24 minutes and however many seasons to go.

Rick Renteria, the 55-year-old manager of the White Sox, does not fill out his own lineup cards. One of his several coaches — hitting, assistant hitting, pitching, bench, bullpen, first base, third base — does it for him. Before a late-June game against the , he sat in the Chicago dugout surrounded by reporters. They asked Renteria about a terrible incident the night before, when a prospect named Dustin Fowler, in the first inning of his major-league career, chased a foul ball and slammed into the railing at , rupturing his right patellar tendon. Renteria said he had watched Fowler race toward the track and thought, Slow down a little bit, slow down. “I think he was just totally focused on that baseball,” Renteria said. Fowler’s own heartsick manager, Joe Girardi, stood over him and wept. The easy line is that baseball is baseball, no matter where it’s being played. It’s balls and strikes. But compared with Kannapolis, Chicago swings a really heavy bat.

Rick Hahn, the general manager of the White Sox, uses the word “volume” to describe the demands of the big-league game on its managers. He means it in both senses of the word: There is so much of everything, and all of it is so loud.

Hahn, 46, is the epitome of today’s baseball executive. He never played. A former baseball agent, he has degrees from Harvard Law and the Kellogg School of Management. He has been charged with tearing down and rebuilding the White Sox, and he has been busy assembling a young roster, employing a religious devotion to the rigorous statistical analysis that has transformed the game. He has also pushed the White Sox organization to mine itself for more people like Justin Jirschele: the coaches, scouts and executives who will help those unpolished players reach their potential. “We’re trying to develop talent that ultimately will let us win in Chicago,” he said. “The message has to be the same throughout the system.”

The challenge for Hahn is that it’s far more difficult for him to evaluate intellectual capital than physical assets. No radar gun exists for brains. Winning percentage, the only statistic by which managers can be measured, isn’t useful at the minor-league level, because a minor-league coach’s principal assignment is player development. Winning can’t come at the cost of burning out a young arm, for instance, and if Jirschele does his job well, he will continually lose his best students to the higher minors in Winston-Salem or Birmingham.

“We don’t even look at winning percentage,” Hahn says. “It’s more about their ability to communicate across the entire dugout, to teach and evaluate their own players. It’s much harder because it’s not quantifiable. You’re dealing with a softer science.”

That means managers are the last objects of baseball’s more ineffable wisdoms. They are expected to translate the projections of their front offices into measurable reality, but they are themselves immune to dispassionate analysis, the way a tool can’t be used on itself. Even the forward-thinking Hahn can’t envision a day when a manager will wear a suit and behave as purely as he does. “Too much of the managerial job is beyond playing the right percentages,” he says. Managers are the game’s aristocrats, powerless next to the Ivy League quants who have become the faces of their franchises but comparatively divine.

Renteria is as much a type as Hahn. He was a marginal-but-diligent player who began coaching and later managed in the low minors, working his way up the ladder before he finally arrived in the majors, extolled for intangible virtues like his patience and class. (Executives sometimes talk about their managers as if they were talking about their family’s venerable butler.) Renteria’s White Sox are not built to win right now, which means his job is to help guide the team to its best possible future self.

Watching him work — equally fluent in Spanish, English and baseball — he seems well suited for that thankless task, but not in a way that can be easily articulated or proved. Hahn uses vague words like “communicator” and “teacher” when describing Renteria’s gifts. Renteria says a good baseball manager takes what might have been an adequate painting and, through his experience and instinct, turns it into a Picasso. “I love numbers, I use numbers, they’re important indicators for me,” Renteria says. “But you have to give that information a life of its own. The human element.”

At spring training this year, Jirschele said that Renteria walked over to the remote corner of the White Sox camp where the Intimidators were learning how to bases and banged against the fence. “Keep working, boys,” Renteria hollered. “Don’t ever quit.” For outsiders, it might have seemed a moment without consequence, not exactly Churchill encouraging his men on the beach. But Jirschele said it meant so much for his players that the big-league manager had taken the time to visit them on the back fields. “I had the chills,” Jirschele said.

Here’s the quandary for someone like Hahn: How do you measure either Renteria’s gesture or Jirschele’s gooseflesh? Can you even begin to try?

I spoke to a number of people within the White Sox organization and asked them why Jirschele was such a good candidate to become someone like Renteria. Chris Getz, Chicago’s current director of player development and a former major-league infielder with the Royals, played for Mike Jirschele on a -A team in Omaha. He says he sees a lot of the father in the son. “He’s still green,” Getz says, “but he has the heart and desire to be just like his dad.” These are cool, clinical times in baseball, and it doesn’t get much cooler or more clinical than Chicago. Yet Getz’s answer, like Tommy Thompson’s early assessment, like every other answer I heard, when boiled down to its essence, was something less than mathematical fact. It was something more like blood.

Only at the very top of baseball’s pyramid is the goal singular, and the resources available to the 30 managers charged with winning the World Series are spectacular. There are no mysteries in the major leagues. By the time a player reaches such great heights, he will have been dissected by an army of scouts, even his slightest tendencies betrayed by repeat viewings.

Justin Jirschele will often face players he has never seen and might never see again. He watches opposition teams take infield and batting practice, but it’s hard for him to know how representative those pregame displays are of a player’s abilities. He started the season with Micker Adolfo, a right fielder with an exceptional arm — “a 70,” Jirschele said, near the top of the charts — that he doesn’t always show off during warm-ups. The relative arm strength of is one of the most critical variables in the decision whether to send or hold runners. Unlike his father in Kansas City, Jirschele doesn’t always have that information available to him. It’s as if he’s missing an essential value from his equation, but he still has to provide an answer.

His first managerial decision, outside his lineup, came in the bottom of the first inning of his first game, against the Lakewood BlueClaws. Managers in A-ball, as if they don’t have enough on their minds, also coach third base, tasked with deciding when to send or hold runners rounding for home. Jirschele looks alarmingly like his father when he’s out there: the same stance, the same mannerisms, the same way of delivering signs to hitters and runners.

Once while Jirschele was still playing in Winston-Salem, Tommy Thompson decided to send his prized pupil out to coach third base. “Threw him in the fire,” Thompson says. As it happened, according to Thompson, Carlos Rodon — then a top prospect, now in the big leagues — was pitching that night, and the White Sox front office had unexpectedly tuned into the game. There was some consternation when they heard that a young teammate was managing Chicago’s first-round pick. The phone rang in the dugout in Winston-Salem.

“What’s wrong with Tommy?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, Tommy needs to get his ass back out there.”

Rodon doesn’t remember that little tempest. “Jirsch probably was so good,” he says, “he would have just seemed like a normal manager. I probably didn’t even realize he was out there.”

Now Jirschele stood in the coach’s box in Kannapolis. In lieu of the statistical bibles available to his major-league counterparts, he had to do his own scouting. He pulled a stopwatch from his back pocket, measuring the time it took Lakewood’s starting , JoJo Romero, to deliver the ball to the catcher. The average pitcher takes about 1.3 seconds to complete his motion. If a pitcher is quicker than that, it’s harder to steal on him; a slower pitcher becomes a target. Romero was inconsistent, sometimes taking 1.1 seconds to deliver, sometimes taking as long as 1.5 when he really put his body into it. Jirschele was in the middle of filing away that fragment of future intelligence when his leadoff hitter, Joel Booker, beat out an infield hit. Jameson Fisher, batting second, then laced a double to center. Booker’s fast, and as he raced around second he was thinking he might score. But Jirschele elected to hold him up at third. Some of the fans in attendance booed. Jirschele had received his first catcalls.

His father’s first season with the Royals ended with a similar decision under far different circumstances. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series, Kansas City was trailing the , 3-2. With two out and nobody on, lifted a ball that fell just out of reach of center fielder . After the ball skipped by Blanco, left fielder Juan Perez, who was out of position because he thought Blanco was going to make the catch, kicked it around the warning track. Gordon kept churning around the bases, nearly tripping over second on his way to third. Perez finally corralled the ball and threw on a hop to Brandon Crawford, San Francisco’s strong-armed shortstop. He turned just as Gordon rounded third. Jirschele held him up. The next hitter, Salvador Perez, popped out. The game, series and season were over, the tying run stranded 90 feet from home.

I was at the game, watching it with the extended Jirschele family. I’d written about Mike’s long journey to the majors that spring and committed the cardinal journalistic sin of falling in love with my subject. It was crushing, seeing Mike walk around the Giants’ celebration to get from third base to the Kansas City dugout. By the time he emerged from the clubhouse, he had already been asked several times about his call. He was baffled by the emerging debate about it. Later that night, the family piled into a hotel room near the ballpark for a commiseration drunk, and Mike explained his decision again and again, trying to figure out whether he had been wrong. (Future independent analysis proved that he had been right.) I was stunned by everything he considered in the 13 seconds it took Gordon to reach him. He based his call, at least in part, on how cleanly Crawford received that hop from Juan Perez, exactly where the ball ended up in his glove, in the heart of the pocket. Mike also looked at Crawford’s feet, how well positioned he was to make the throw home. In some ways, 36 years of experience factored into that fateful stop sign.

For Justin Jirschele, his first decision — to hold Joel Booker in the first inning of his first game — was equally justified. He can make a case for everything he does, which is one of the things the White Sox like about him: He’s a rational actor. He might not always be right, but he always has his reasons, and even baseball’s most feel-driven reactionaries like to think that at least a little logic is at work. There was nobody out (“That’s the biggest one, nobody out,” he said after), and seeing his lead runner gunned down at the plate for the first out would be no way to start his career. “We had the chance for a huge inning,” he said. Booker eventually made it home when the Kannapolis cleanup hitter, Brandon Dulin, grounded a ball to second.

Booker’s run proved to be the only one of the inning, but it will always be Jirschele’s first. The lead it provided was temporary. Everything else about that run was permanent. His managerial career was no longer potential, or only potential; now he had the beginnings of a history, which meant he could start being judged.

After most games, Jirschele calls his father, and together they might talk for an hour or more, first working through Mike’s big-league game in Kansas City or Boston or New York and next Justin’s Low-A game in Kannapolis or Hickory, N.C., or Hagerstown, Md. The unspoken goal of the sessions is to slow the game down for both of them. Baseball might seem slow enough on its own, but it’s all too quick for the men charged with bending its complexities in their favor, and the Jirscheles work together to earn timeouts in a sport that never really stops demanding answers from them. That requires building a kind of intellectual muscle memory, the ability to distill their previous experiences without conscious thought, combined with their shared knack for predicting what’s about to happen. Even at his young age, if Justin can instinctively apply the lessons of the past to a future that only he can see, then his present, no matter how chaotic, becomes manageable.

Along with his father’s baseball intelligence, Justin Jirschele has inherited the deep perfectionism that runs through his family. They are particular people. In his winters, Mike Jirschele, World Series champion, still works in the basement of the Clintonville furniture store where he has worked for more than three decades, repairing broken night stands and touching up nicks in bed frames with wax and paint. He has become expert at using his tiny brushes to mimic the grain of wood. Until Justin and Liz married and moved to Madison this winter, he delivered the furniture his father made perfect. The keen eye for detail was passed along with it.

A darker genetic strain also courses through the Jirscheles. Justin’s grandparents Don and Mary had eight children: four boys, including Mike, and four girls. When their eldest son, Doug, was 11, they noticed that he had begun walking on the balls of his feet. Tests revealed that muscular dystrophy had first surfaced in an attack on Doug’s Achilles’ tendon. The Jirscheles were told that their daughters might be carriers of the disease but most likely free of symptoms. All the boys were destined for wheelchairs, and if any of them reached 40, they should consider themselves lucky. Mike somehow escaped the disease, mystifying the doctors, but his younger brother, Pete, did not. Mary was pregnant at the time with her eighth child. She and Don hoped for a girl, but he was a boy, Jim, and he was also afflicted. Mike’s three brothers, Justin’s three uncles, each made it to 40, but not by much. There are still signs of them everywhere in Don’s home, in the wheelchair ramps and pulley systems and the small, framed reminder over the changing table in the bathroom: “Love never fails.”

Justin can remember the entire family — his grandparents, his uncles, his mother and his siblings — piling into vans in the summertime, wheelchairs folded into the back, driving across the country to see his father manage the game he loved. “I wouldn’t trade those trips for the world,” Justin said, and he could barely get out the words before his eyes filled with tears.

Watching baseball with Justin, going over his games with him in the quiet of his office, is an ongoing lesson in mindfulness. He talks about baseball with wonder. He’s captivated by its infinitude, at the range of possibility that exists in the space between its expected and actual outcomes. It’s a game of sometimes painfully fine lines. “What-ifs,” he said one frustrating night, shaking his head. The way a pitching coach might break down a pitcher’s delivery into its beats, Jirschele pulls apart the entire game, first finding its movements and then examining each of its notes. The discordant ones stand out for him the most. That’s partly because good ears are doomed to disappointment. It’s more because he believes that being careless with your blessings is a sin.

The Intimidators lost their first two games against the BlueClaws, and they lost mostly because they combined for six errors in the field. On the afternoon before their third game, Jirschele held a little conference with his position players. He told them that he was proud of the way they had kept their heads in the game even after their mistakes. (“They’re not dinking the dog,” was how he said it to me.) He reminded them that baseball isn’t a game that allows even the best to be perfect very often; it’s a game of try. So long as he continued to see effort, so long as they kept working on their fundamentals, so long as they played baseball as if they were lucky to play it, they had nothing to worry about. Nobody had anything to worry about.

That night they lost again in excruciating fashion. They had a 4-3 lead in the top of the ninth. Lakewood was down to its final out, nobody on. Two strikes. The Intimidators crowded the top step of their dugout, ready for their first celebration of the year. The batter took a check swing for what looked like Strike 3, but the umpire ruled that he hadn’t gone around. He hit the next pitch deep to right for a to tie the game, and Kannapolis lost in extras. It was Fireworks Night, and the sky filled after with an almost mocking light. They lost their next game, too. In Justin Jirschele’s first series as a manager, he had also endured his first sweep.

He called his father. Experience proves most helpful when times are hard. There isn’t much Mike hasn’t seen, which means there isn’t much he hasn’t suffered, which means there isn’t much he hasn’t survived. Nobody wants to be swept; everybody is swept. He steadied Justin, telling him that baseball has a way of balancing its ledgers.

In their first meeting with the Rome Braves, they played close to a perfect ballgame and carried a 5-1 lead into the ninth. Mike Morrison, a 23-year-old righty, came in to close out the game for Kannapolis. Jirschele had his foot on the top dugout step. Morrison dug in and stared down the first batter. He struck him out.

The next batter chopped one back to Morrison, who threw the ball to first — two away.

The last batter went down swinging.

For the first time, a victorious Jirschele met his team on the field for celebratory handshakes. Morrison had retrieved the ball from his catcher’s glove, and when he reached Jirschele, he led with it, and then followed it with a hug.

“I had some family issues,” Morrison said, “and he checks on me every day. We love playing for him. He works his butt off. I told him it was the first of many. He’ll probably have 3,000 of these one day.”

Jirschele didn’t really coach one team this season. As the summer wore on, the Intimidators were constantly overhauled. His most consistent pitcher, a towering 22-year-old named Dane Dunning, was promoted after just four brilliant starts; Jirschele lost another seven players in a mass promotion after the All-Star break, when his team was in first place. By August, only nine members of his original 25-man roster still played for him. Morrison was among the departed.

Jirschele changed as well, although in less obvious ways. The placement of infielders has always been his favorite of the game’s many opportunities for subtle artistry. Last season, when he was still a hitting coach and perhaps prematurely given that task by his manager, Jirschele erred on the side of caution when positioning his infielders even late in close games. He dreaded the idea of seeing a lazy ball drop over their heads, scoring runners from second and third, so he played them out. In his first game this season, however, he drew his players in-between, and by the third game, he was bringing them all the way in. There are signs of his growing fearlessness on the basepaths too. He’s trying to steal more bases and more often calling for the hit-and-run. He has also asked his players to bunt a little less and swing away more. It’s still too early to know, but Jirschele might prove that rare example of a man whom time makes more free.

The Intimidators eventually recovered from their slow start, going on a tear to earn their first postseason appearance since 2009. “It’s gone so fast,” Justin said of his first season, sitting in his office in late August. He was in the heart of baseball’s hardest month, and he was still arriving at the ballpark a half-day early. “I still have the same feeling every day when I wake up,” he said. “I absolutely love this.”

There was a quiet moment after his first win back in April that he still thinks about. While the players filled the clubhouse with the sound of celebration, their young manager stood alone in the hallway, leaning his head against the wall in relief. He was going over the game, sequence by sequence, asking himself why everything had worked this time. Could he make it work again tomorrow night? Could he find a way to win more than he lost this summer, and next summer, and the next? During the game he asked himself: Who? When? Now he wondered: Why? How? And then he flashed to Mike Morrison and marveled out loud about how with so much on his young mind, all those hitters to deal with, the burden of carrying his wobbling team to its first win of the year, and with maybe his own future somehow in the balance, he had still remembered his manager and waded through the chaos to deliver him that winning ball.

“That’s a special person,” Jirschele said, “to think about that right there.”

Avisail's big day paces Sox 25-hit rout of Tigers By Jason Beck and Kyle Beery / MLB.com | September 14th, 2017

DETROIT -- Avisail Garcia hit a three-run homer as part of a five-hit, seven-RBI game at his old home ballpark, pacing a 25-hit White Sox attack for a 17-7 win over the Tigers on Thursday afternoon at Comerica Park.

Yoan Moncada added a solo homer as part of a four-hit game for the Sox, who picked up their fifth win in their last six games to close within a game of in the American League Central standings.

White Sox manager Rick Renteria said Moncada is beginning to feel more comfortable in a Major League setting after taking time to soak things in upon making his White Sox debut in mid-July. "It's starting to happen," Renteria said. "At the plate, it's happening a little more. He's starting to feel freer on the bases." Moncada's fifth home run of the year sparked a four-hit, two-run opening inning off Tigers starter Chad Bell (0-3) before four-run surges in the fourth and sixth innings put the Sox in front for good. Garcia, who began his career in Detroit in 2012 before being traded to the White Sox a year later, singled in two runs in the fourth before hitting an opposite-field drive to right off Jeff Ferrell -- his fifth at Comerica Park since the start of last season -- and RBI singles off Joe Jimenez in the seventh and Victor Alcantara in the eighth.

"When our offense scores seven runs, we should win the game. No doubt," Bell said. "Gotta keep working, and just get better."

Garcia's five-hit, seven-RBI game is the first by a White Sox player since Carl Reynolds on July 2, 1930. Their 21 singles Thursday tied a franchise record for the White Sox, and marked the second-most allowed by the Tigers in their history.

Garcia said it was special to have his career day in Detroit against the team that gave him his first shot at the big leagues.

"It was good. I like to come here and see my [old] teammates," Garcia said. "I feel comfortable coming here and playing the game here."

James Shields (4-6) allowed four runs on nine hits over six innings, including home runs to Miguel Cabrera, Nicholas Castellanos and Jeimer Candelario, but he struck out seven for his second straight win. The veteran right-hander improved to 6-1 lifetime at Comerica Park. Ian Kinsler added a solo homer in the ninth, his 18th of the season.

"He's certainly a little funky, creates a little deception, and his breaking ball's moving a little different direction than normal," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. "But I didn't think we swung the bats badly off of him."

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED

Running out a rally: The White Sox ran the bases with aggressiveness all afternoon, going first to third on singles six times in the first seven innings. They did it twice in their go-ahead rally in the fourth, setting up Garcia's two-run single up the middle after Tim Anderson's bouncer near the same spot plated two earlier in the inning.

Cabrera, Castellanos go back-to-back: Cabrera hadn't homered at Comerica Park since July 28, but he has a history of homers off Shields. A Shields cutter low and in was enough for Cabrera to extend his arms and pull it on a line over the left-field fence for a third-inning solo shot. Five pitches later, Castellanos turned on a and sent it out to left, tying the game at 2.

QUOTABLE

"I think the results validate your work, your routine, your approach, and I've been sticking with it. And right now we can see the results." -- Moncada, on sticking with his approach after slow start in July and August

SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS

The 25 White Sox hits mark their highest total in a game since they churned out 26 against the Orioles on April 23, 1981.

Cabrera's 462nd career home run tied him with former White Sox slugger Adam Dunn and for 35th on the Major League all-time list.

REPLAY REVIEW

For the second time this month, the squishy top of the left-field fence at Comerica Park came into play on a potential home run. Nearly two weeks after a ball bounced twice off the top of the fence before Mikie Mahtook inadvertently knocked it over, Jose Iglesias hit a drive that bounced off the top and stayed in. A crew-chief review upheld the original call of an RBI double.

WHAT'S NEXT White Sox: (2-1, 6.00 ERA) take the mound Friday looking to build off the best start of his young career. Fulmer allowed one run on three hits across six innings in his win against the Giants on Sunday, racking up nine along the way. First pitch is set for 6:10 p.m. CT. Tigers: Anibal Sanchez (3-4, 7.43 ERA) gets the start Friday as the series continues with a 7:10 p.m. ET start at Comerica Park. It'll be Sanchez's first start against the White Sox since Sept. 7, 2016.

Moncada impresses with career day at plate Young White Sox 2nd baseman goes 4-for-5 with 2 walks, 5 runs scored

By Kyle Beery / Special to MLB.com | September 14th, 2017

DETROIT -- Since signing with the Red Sox in March 2015, Cuban infielder Yoan Moncada has been one of the hottest young commodities in all of baseball. So White Sox fans were rightfully excited about his arrival in the Chicago organization last offseason, then as MLBPipeline.com's No. 1 prospect.

While he got off to a bit of a slow start with the White Sox since joining the big league club in mid-July, Moncada has been hot lately, riding a 15-game on-base streak. His gaudy numbers in Thursday's 17-7 win at Comerica Park solidified his status as the club's top youngster.

Moncada went 4-for-5 with a solo home run, three singles, two walks and five runs scored. He became the third player in franchise history to score five runs and reach base six times, and he is the second player in MLB history to do so within his first 50 games, joining Johnny Frederick, who did it in 1929. Moncada's five runs on Thursday tied the White Sox franchise record, last done by Tim Raines in 1994. Despite his slow start, Moncada hasn't changed much about his approach at the plate. "I think the results validate your work, your routine, your approach, and I've been sticking with it," Moncada said through a translator. "And right now, we can see the results. I haven't changed anything. I've been doing my same routine, I have confidence in myself and I feel good on the field."

The one change Moncada has made to his game is his choice of bat. Teammate Jose Abreu approached him a little more than a week ago about using shorter and lighter bats, and it has paid off. Since making the change, beginning with the series at Kansas City earlier this week, he has gone 10-for-19.

"With this one, I feel my hands more lightly," Moncada said. "My swing is more fluid and stronger with these bats."

While manager Rick Renteria is pleased with how Moncada has been delivering at the dish, he did harp on his defense Thursday, noting one play in particular he thought Moncada should have made. JaCoby Jones snuck a two-out single single past Moncada into right field, which extended the sixth inning and led to a Jose Iglesias RBI double.

"That play that got under his glove, that was a play where he was a little more lackadaisical than he should have been," Renteria said. "He should've gotten to that play a lot sooner. I spoke to him after the play before his next at-bat. He didn't have anything to say because he knows."

Renteria said those types of plays have been happening less and less with Moncada, and he's happy with the way he is progressing as he sees more time in the Majors after his slow start. "It's starting to happen," Renteria said. "At the plate, it's happening a little more. He's starting to feel freer on the bases."

Sox look to prospect Fulmer vs. Tigers By Kyle Beery / Special to MLB.com | September 14th, 2017

With the regular season winding down, White Sox manager Rick Renteria said the organization is using September as a big part of its evaluation process.

"I think the concern is that when your team takes the field, when they're out there performing, that they're giving you the effort," Renteria said. "But also, you realize that there are going to be some mistakes along the way. The question is, 'How quickly can you correct those mistakes?'"

Among those being evaluated is Carson Fulmer, the White Sox No. 9 prospect according to MLBPipeline.com, who will start for the Sox on Friday at Comerica Park. Fulmer (2-1, 6.00 ERA) made his Major League debut last season, and he has made his way into Chicago's rotation late this season. Renteria said Fulmer looked calmer in his last start, when he allowed one run in six innings against the Giants on Sunday.

"I think one of the things the organization has been doing with him -- [] and all the pitching coaches in the organization -- is slow his tempo down a little bit in terms of his delivery," Renteria said. "I think he's going to be one of those guys that quietly improves and starts impressing everybody."

Anibal Sanchez takes the mound for the Tigers on Friday in what has been a rough season for him in Detroit's depleted rotation. After lasting just one batter before being hit by a line drive in his Sept. 5 start, Sanchez gave up seven runs on 12 hits in 4 2/3 innings at Toronto last time out. Things to know about this game • Fulmer got eight of his nine strikeouts on fastballs (four-seamers or cutters) in his last start, and seven of those came on pitches he elevated to the upper third of the strike zone or above. Only two this season ( and Robbie Ray) have recorded more strikeouts in a game on fastballs of any type thrown to those locations.

• Tigers Mikie Mahtook may return from a groin injury that has held him out for about a week. Manager Brad Ausmus said he expects Mahtook back no later than Saturday. • Tigers starter Jordan Zimmermann (neck) is expected to throw a bullpen session Friday, but he will need at least one more side session before returning to the rotation.

A look at the wild numbers behind the White Sox breakout day By Dan Hayes / CSN Chicago | September 14, 2017

They still reside nearly 30 games under .500, but the White Sox continue to make things interesting.

The White Sox produced double-digit base hits for a sixth straight game Thursday afternoon and tied a club-record with 21 singles in a 17-7 rout of the Detroit Tigers. Yoan Moncada and Avisail Garcia each reached base six times for the White Sox, who finished with 25 hits and have outscored opponents in the past six games 57-18. Moncada scored five runs and Garcia had five hits and a career-high seven RBIs.

-- In reaching base six times, Moncada became the first player under 23 to do so in a game since in 2013, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

-- Garcia is the first White Sox player to have at least six RBIs in a game twice in a season since Tadahito Iguchi, according to CSN’s Chris Kamka.

-- The team’s 25 hits were its most in a game since May 25, 2009, according to Kamka.

-- Moncada and Garcia are the first White Sox players to each reach base six times in a game since Luis Aparicio and Billy Goodman in Game 2 of a June 29, 1958 doubleheader.

-- Moncada, Jose Abreu and Garcia is the first White Sox trio with a four-hit game each since Ray Durham, and Ron Karkovice on Aug. 11, 1996.

-- Moncada’s first three hits, including a solo homer in the first inning, came off left-handed pitcher Chad Bell. Moncada is now hitting .250/.328/.404 slash line against southpaws after carrying a .397 OPS as recently as last week.

-- Moncada has been red hot since switched he bats on Friday after Abreu ordered him some new ones. He’s 10-for-19 with a triple, home run, three walks, three strikeouts and eight runs in his last 23 plate appearances.

-- Moncada is hitting .229/.353/.407 with five homers and 22 RBIs in 167 plate appearances and has a wRC+ of 108 this season.

-- Abreu went 4-for-5 and drove in two runs, which has him only five shy of reaching the 100-RBI mark for the fourth straight season.

Still sore, Avisail Garcia looks for strong finish to breakout campaign By Dan Hayes / CSN Chicago | September 14, 2017

Avisail Garcia wants nothing more than to finish his breakout campaign with a flourish. He doesn’t intend to let his sore fingers get in the way, either.

If Thursday’s performance is any indication, Garcia has done a good job managing the situation. The White Sox outfielder went 5-for-6 with a home run and a career-high seven RBIs in a 17-7 victory at the Detroit Tigers. The effort was yet another in a string of good ones for the All-Star, who has been on a tear since he returned from the disabled list with a strained ligament in his right thumb in early August.

“I’m just trying to deal with it,” Garcia said on Wednesday. “It’s not easy, but I’ve got to play. I’ve got to help my team to win and trying to do my best. The season is almost done so I’ve got to continue to play hard and trying to do my best and trying to stay on the field.”

Garcia suffered a series of injuries right before the All-Star break, which brought his doubters back in full force as it appeared as if he was falling back to earth after a fantastic start.

First was the knee injury he suffered June 28 against the Yankees that kept him out of the lineup until July 4. The day after he returned, Garcia suffered the first of two finger injuries, the latter of which landed him on the DL from July 26-Aug. 7. While Garcia was in good enough shape to appear in the All-Star Game and play in center field, he hit .216/.259/.333 with two home runs and three RBIs in 54 plate appearances in July.

The right fielder wore a guard to protect his hand while on the DL and waited for the swelling in his fingers to subside so he could return to action.

While Garcia’s reached a manageable state, he’s still not pain free.

But it hasn’t affected his play. Including Thursday’s victory, Garcia is hitting .413/.464/.571 with four home runs and 23 RBIs in 140 plate appearances since he returned.

“There is a lot to it,” manager Rick Renteria said. “Obviously you’re holding the handle of the bat in your hand. If you’re uncomfortable it’s very difficult to put in a pretty good swing. He worked through it, he battled through it. He’s still dealing with it, but it’s in such a minimal place in terms of discomfort. But he’s still playing and being able to do what he needs to.”

Garcia said he’s receiving treatment on his fingers every day with hot and cold water. Thursday’s effort against his former team is likely to have him feeling even better.

Garcia singled in the first inning and walked in the third. He singled in two runs in the fourth and blasted a three-run homer -- his 17th -- to right in the sixth inning. He added RBI singles in the seventh and eighth innings to become the first White Sox player with at least six RBIs in a game twice in the same season since Tadahito Iguchi in 2006.

Overall, Garcia is hitting .333/.380/.509 with 17 home runs and 77 RBIs in 503 plate appearances this season and a 137 wRC+.

"It’s not been easy but I’m just trying to be on the field every day,” Garcia said. “You’ve just keep your head up and trying to do my job and trying to do my best and trying to help my team win.””

Yoan Moncada reaches base 6 times, scores franchise-tying 5 runs in 17-7 win Colleen Kane / Chicago Tribune | September 14, 2017

Jose Abreu shouted with glee Thursday evening in the visiting clubhouse at Comerica Park when he heard a reporter ask Yoan Moncada about his new bats.

Abreu recently suggested Moncada try a lighter bat, and the White Sox veteran had some shipped for the rookie second baseman to Kansas City to begin the Sox's 10-game trip Monday.

Since he used them Monday, Moncada has had three multi-hit games in four tries and extended his hitting streak to six. That included a career-high four hits in a 17-7 victory over the Tigers.

Moncada added a pair of walks and a to reach base six times and scored a franchise record-tying five runs. The last Sox player to score five runs was Tim Raines in 1994.

"My swing is more fluid, and I feel stronger with my swing with these bats," Moncada said though a team interpreter.

Of course, Moncada's stretch is about more than equipment.

Sox manager Rick Renteria said at the beginning of August he believed Moncada was soaking up information and that his results would start to turn as he learned.

After Thursday's game, Moncada said he is starting to feel more comfortable from both sides of the plate as he upped his batting average to .229. He hit his second homer batting right-handed — and his fifth overall — in the first inning.

"The results validate your work, your routine and your approach," Moncada said. "I have been sticking with it, and right now you can see the results. I haven't changed anything. I've been doing my same routine. I have confidence in myself, and I feel very, very good right now on the field."

Avi's big day: Avisail Garcia always likes to return to Comerica Park to face the Tigers, who traded him to the Sox in 2013.

He made Thursday's return more special when he recorded a career-high five hits and seven RBIs, raising his batting average to .333.

Garcia is just the second Sox player since at least 1913 with five hits and seven RBIs in a game, along with Carl Reynolds in 1930.

"I like to come here and see all of my former teammates," Garcia said. "I feel comfortable playing here."

Extra innings: Sox right-hander James Shields felt pretty good about his outing after giving up four earned runs on nine hits with a walk and seven strikeouts over six innings. It is the first time he has earned a victory in back-to-back starts this year. … The Sox's 25 hits were their most since 1981, and their 21 singles tied a franchise record.

White Sox's Tim Anderson on six-week surge: 'I'm feeling back to myself' Colleen Kane / Chicago Tribune | September 14, 2017

Tim Anderson feels like himself again, and it's showing on and off the field.

The second-year White Sox shortstop collected his eighth multi-hit game in his last 10 outings Thursday to help drive a 17-7 victory over the Tigers in the opener of a four-game series at Comerica Park.

Yoan Moncada had a career-high four hits and five runs scored, including a first-inning home run to start the scoring, and Avisail Garcia had a career-high five hits and seven RBIs, including a three-run homer in the sixth.

Leading off for the second straight game, Anderson was 3-for-7 with two runs scored and two RBIs. Since Aug. 2, Anderson has hit .315 with 11 doubles, three triples, seven home runs, 24 RBIs and 44 strikeouts in 38 games.

"I'm feeling back to myself, just having fun and able to play free," said Anderson, who has lifted his overall average to .258.

Anderson is a key piece of the Sox rebuild, a point driven home when he signed a six-year, $25 million contract in the spring. It hasn't been an easy season, and he said it is important for him to wrap up strong after he hit .204 with 10 extra- base hits, 14 RBIs and a .524 OPS in 47 games in June and July.

Since Aug. 2, he has gone hitless in just seven games. He also has played better on defense, committing just four of his 26 errors since then. He helped Sox right-hander James Shields a run Thursday with a difficult running grab on a first-inning popup.

"A lot of things that were going on early in the year are behind him, allowing him to free himself a little more emotionally and mentally," Sox manager Rick Renteria said.

"He's feeling like he's in a good place, playing really good on both sides of the baseball right now. That may be just more experience, more time, knowledge he's gaining with being a part of something that's very demanding."

Anderson attributes some of his turnaround to going to see a counselor, a handful of sessions he said his agent set up about a month and a half ago. Anderson has been open about his struggles dealing with the shooting death of a close friend in his home state of Alabama in May, and he is doing the same with how he has emerged from that low point.

"I didn't realize until I started seeing a counselor," Anderson said Thursday. "We talked and I just listened to some of the things she told me. I was like, 'Man, that's a lot I've been through.'

"Ever since I talked to her, things have been getting better. I've been relieved and things have been off my chest."

Anderson also is being recognized for trying to create something positive out of his grief off the field.

Anderson was nominated this week for the Marvin Miller Man of the Year Award after he started a program called "Anderson's League of Leaders" to guide Chicago youth this year after his friend's death.

"(After) some of the things he has had to deal with, he's going to realize he's capable of overcoming a lot," Renteria said. "That's the strength he has from within. And the support he has from his family and everybody, he's continuing to persevere."

Anderson said the Sox as a whole have been enjoying themselves lately.

On Thursday, they reached double-digit runs for the third time in six games, scored 17 runs for the first time since 2012 and had 25 hits for the first time since 1981.

"This last few we've been swinging the bats real well, and it's something to be excited about for the future," Anderson said. "We have been having fun."

Moncada, Garcia enjoy career games in White Sox’ rout of Tigers Daryl Van Schouwen / Chicago Sun-Times | September 14, 2017

DETROIT — Sitting at his locker after the White Sox’ 17-7 rout Thursday of the Tigers, a smiling Jose Abreu raised his arms and yelled in triumph when fellow Cuban Yoan Moncada was asked about the bats.

Moncada’s six-game hitting streak, which peaked with four hits — including a home run — two walks and a franchise- record-tying five runs scored Thursday, has run almost parallel to his using the lighter bats Abreu ordered for him.

Abreu had four hits for the major-league-leading seventh time this season, but he was overshadowed not only by Moncada’s big game but by Avisail Garcia, who drove in a career-high seven runs with a career-high five hits, including a three-run homer.

The last-place Sox (59-87) won for the fifth time in their last six games and have a chance to put the plummeting Tigers (60-86) at the bottom of the American League Central before their four-game series is over.

With Garcia, Moncada and Abreu leading the way, the Sox banged out 25 hits, their highest total since they had 26 against the Orioles in 1981. Their 21 singles tied a club record set in 1922 and matched in 1981.

It was a breakout day for Moncada, who homered in the first inning and had a chance to become the first Sox player to reach base seven times in a nine-inning game before striking out looking in the ninth.

While his on-base percentage is a solid .353, thanks in part to 24 walks in 39 games, Moncada hasn’t hit for average since being called up from Class AAA Charlotte in mid-July. But he’s getting there, with 12 hits in his last 28 at-bats raising his average from .179 to .229.

Moncada went from a 34-inch, 32-ounce bat to a 33½-inch, 31-ounce model, which he said gives him a better feel in his hands.

‘‘My swing is more fluid, and I feel stronger with my swing with these bats,’’ he said through an interpreter. ‘‘It was [Abreu’s] suggestion. He saw me having trouble with the bats I was using. He approached me and said, ‘Why don’t you try this different model to see how you feel?’ He ordered the bats, and I’ve been feeling really good with them.’’

Garcia said it felt good to have a big day against the Tigers, for whom he started his career. He raised his average to .333 and his homer and RBI totals to 17 and 77. He got his final hit by running hard on a routine grounder to third in a blowout game.

‘‘Always I’m trying to do my best and give 100 percent,’’ Garcia said.

Moncada tied Tim Raines’ franchise record from 1994 when he scored his fifth run on a sacrifice fly by Matt Davidson in the eighth.

Winning pitcher James Shields (4-6) allowed four runs in six innings and was hurt by a ground ball Moncada probably should have reached.

‘‘I told [Moncada] that he had been too lackadaisical on that ball,’’ manager Rick Renteria said. ‘‘He already knew. He was disgusted with himself.’’

The defensive lapse notwithstanding, Moncada is starting to show why the Sox traded ace left-hander Chris Sale to the Red Sox to get him.

‘‘It’s starting to happen,’’ Renteria said. ‘‘At the plate, it’s happening a little more. He’s starting to feel freer on the bases.’’

From start to finish, Renteria pleased with White Sox’ effort Daryl Van Schouwen / Chicago Sun-Times | September 14, 2017 DETROIT — There are two and a half weeks left in their season and the Sox are 29 games below .500 and, to their credit, they are still running out routine ground balls.

It’s something first-year manager Rick Renteria has demanded since spring training and is seeing it through to the end.

“That’s just a sign of who you want to be as an organization and a club,” Renteria said. “We ask those guys to do that every day.”

Home-to-first times are recorded on every at-bat, and Renteria said he still checks them after games “especially if I feel something didn’t kind of go right.” That said, at this time of the year when players might be more banged up physically, he takes that into account.

“I had a manager when I was growing up who said if you have 50 percent just give me 100 of your 50,” Renteria said. “I tell these guys all the time, ‘just give me 100 of what you got.’ It might be 80 percent of what they’re capable of but it’s everything they have at that particular moment. They’ve been grinding it out, I’ve been very proud of the way they play the game and give the effort. I think that is huge, it’s something not only the organization demands of them and expects of them but I think the fans demand of them. We’re trying to maintain a consistent approach. Win, lose or draw, just give them a good effort.”

The Sox (58-87) opened a four-game series against the Tigers having won four of their last five games. They are trying to win consecutive games on the road for the first time since June 16-17 at Toronto.

Anderson picks it up

Shortstop Tim Anderson entered the Sox series at Detroit hitting .462 with two homers, six RBI and nine runs scored in his last nine games. He took a .255/.274/.409 into Thursday’s game.

The general consensus is that Anderson’s performance was affected by the tragic death of a close friend in May, something he has gone through counseling for. Renteria said Anderson is in a better place “emotionally and mentally” now.

Looking at his numbers now, “you’d say, ‘gosh, this guy never had any struggles because the numbers are showing pretty well,’ ” Renteria said

Anderson still leaders the major leagues with 26 errors, but he has committed four in his last 49 games after making 22 in his first 81 and Renteria praised his clean execution on a Royals first-and-third double steal Wednesday in a 5-3 Sox victory. He made a difficult running catch in short left field with two outs and Tigers at first and third in the first inning Thursday.

“I think his focus is a little more intense,” Renteria said. “Everybody starts to understand you really need to be in every pitch.”

This and that

Yoan Moncada hit his second consecutive home run from the right side against lefty Chad Bell in the first inning Thursday, extending his hitting streak to six games.

*Renteria kept switch-hitting infielder Yolmer Sanchez, who is batting .417 with seven extra-base hits over his last six games, out of the lineup a second straight day to give Tyler Saladino a second straight start against a left-hander.

*The Sox list Sunday’s starter as TBA but “it might be” right-hander Dylan Covey, Renteria said.

*Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said he might let super-utility man Andrew Romine play all nine positions in one game during the Tigers’ final three-team home stand, which opened Thursday. If so, Ausmus said it would happen against the Athletics or White Sox because they’re out of playoff contention.

By the numbers: White Sox’s record day proves they’re ahead of Tigers in rebuild James Fegan / The Athletic | September 14, 2017

Sometimes you run across a team that just wants it a lot more than you do, which might be how White Sox general manager Rick Hahn feels about the Tigers in regards to the No. 3 overall draft pick. On the field, a thoroughly disinterested and depleted Tigers club probably feels that way about Ricky’s boys.

The White Sox (59-87) annihilated a spiraling Tigers club reeling from trades at Comerica Park Thursday afternoon in a 17-7 demolition that featured season-best offensive days for pretty much anyone interested in having one. The win was the White Sox's fifth in six contests and put a bow on top of a six-game offensive rampage.

With the White Sox now within a game of the Tigers in the AL Central standings, take a look at the numbers from Thursday's matinee.

25: Season-high hit total for the White Sox, surpassing the 19 they bashed in a 16-1 thumping of Seattle in May. They had seven batters record multi-hit days, and they now have 96 hits over their last six games to go along with 57 runs. At the top of the order, Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Jose Abreu, Avisail Garcia and Matt Davidson combined to go 19-for-27 with 12 runs scored and 15 RBIs. The Sox's 21 singles Thursday also tied a franchise record, and 17 runs scored is a season high.

Man, the Tigers really cannot pitch.

2: Games with three hits or more for Moncada during his career, with both coming this week, and the second of which was clinched by the fourth inning on Thursday. Even more impressively, the first three of his hits came from the right side of the plate against lefty Chad Bell. He also collected his second home run from the right side this season on a high fastball from Bell in the first inning to go along with three singles, two walks, five runs scored and a on the day.

1: Anderson's over-the-shoulder grab on a bloop to short left-center in the first inning was one of the best plays Hawk Harrelson has ever seen, and it saved a run for James Shields. With all due respect for Alen Hanson’s sliding effort coming from deep left, Anderson’s little snatch move was the only way this ball was being caught.

White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson had three hits and a pair of RBIs to go along with one spectacular catch Thursday afternoon. (Duane Burleson/Getty Images) One is also the number of four-hit games Moncada has in his career now after he reached base six times Thursday. He did make a senseless misplay on an easy grounder that should have ended the bottom of the sixth, resulting in James Shields losing his quality start, so he wasn't flawless, but he now has a 110 wRC+ for the season after being a certified bust just a few weeks ago. Moncada had reached base in nine straight plate appearances before his ninth-inning strikeout.

8 of 10: That’s eight multi-hit performances for Anderson in his last 10 games played, a feat he secured with a trio of singles on Thursday. Anderson drilled a two-run single back up the middle of the infield to break the game open in the fourth, and he's hitting a healthy .320 against left-handed pitching this season.

7: Career-high RBIs Thursday for Garcia, who, with the Sox already up big, busted it down the line to beat a lazy effort by Detroit third baseman Jeimer Candelario with the bases loaded in the eighth. It was his 25th infield hit of the season and his fifth hit of the day, also a new career high.

.509: Slugging percentage for Garcia, who is now back over .500 for the first time since July 22, thanks, in large part, to his three-run homer in the sixth. Garcia reached out and poked an outside fastball 361 feet to right field and surprisingly it got out of the yard. It’s not possible to “luck” your way into hitting .333 over the course of more than 500 major league plate appearances, but the more Garcia can incorporate power into his game, the more faith it provides that he can do this again next year.

140: wRC+ for Abreu after he hit four singles and worked his way up to 95 RBIs on the season. He’s barely holding off Garcia, who is on his tail with a 137 wRC+.

23.2 percent: Strikeout rate for Shields over his past eight starts since he dropped down in his delivery. He gave up three solo home runs and nearly allowed a three-run homer to Jose Iglesias on a fly ball that fell short by a foot, but he’s undoubtedly getting more movement and life. He looks like someone who can keep things competitive when he gets the ball every five days, which is all you want.

White Sox Insider: What makes a good game caller? James Fegan / The Athletic | September 15, 2017

After his 10-strikeout performance on Sept. 3, heaped praise on Kevan Smith for his work calling the game behind the plate.

It’s common to hear a starting pitcher give credit to their catcher, and for Derek Holland it often seemed like a requirement before he got into any discussion of himself. But most of the time it doesn’t get very specific, sort of a “remember to tip your waiter” note thrown in for posterity. Giolito, on the other hand, got a little more specific.

“The curveball early in the game wasn’t really working, it was popping out of my hand a bit, and then kind of found it later in the game,” Giolito said, referring to some early struggles that shifted them to using changeups as his primary off-speed pitch. “He’s able to really recognize what’s working, what’s not working and then kind of go off the scouting report and also what the pitcher’s feeling. Give it up to him for having a really, really good mind back there.”

Most of the time when a pitcher credits a catcher for game calling, you mostly have to take their word for it, since pitch execution, or lack thereof, is usually the far more recognizable and pertinent factor. A higher than high fastball is genius if the pitcher hits his spot at 95 mph with armside run, a 3-2 curveball is foolish if the pitcher bounces it in front of home plate or hangs it.

During the last homestand, White Sox minor league catching coordinator John Orton was at the ballpark for two reasons. First, the Sox employ a pair of relatively inexperienced in Omar Narvaez and Kevan Smith, and they could benefit from some first-hand instruction from Orton, now that the minor league season all but wrapped up. Second, being a roving minor league instructor is kind of like spending all year preparing ingredients but never seeing what dish you’re actually trying to cook, and the Sox wanted to lend Orton — who says he really can't properly analyze catching performance unless he's watching from the dugout — some perspective.

“When you finally get your rovers to come back and be able to see the game at the major-league level, when you're traveling and working in the minor leagues, you're seeing all those different levels and you kind of lose sight of what's actually going on here at the major-league level,” manager Rick Renteria said. “I think it gives you a better gauge as to what we need to work on throughout the system. It gives you a better gauge as to some of the things that we'd like to do at the major-league level.”

White Sox pitchers, including Carlos Rodon, have praised catcher Kevan Smith for his ability to implement in-game adjustments. (Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports) With Orton around, it seemed like the best time to figure out how the Sox assess their game-callers, what makes a good one, and how a young catcher develops the skill.

“For me, the No. 1 thing is you have to care, big time, about the guy on the mound, and whoever it might be,” Orton said. “You have different 13 personalities out there and it’s always hard to care about a guy you can’t stand in the clubhouse.

“The guys who call good games take big-time pride in throwing up zeroes every inning or getting pitchers through innings. And then it just comes down to understanding what a pitcher can and can’t do. And then you take it a step further and you’re trying to read swings and read hitters, scouting reports as you go to higher levels and have more scouting reports. Having a feel.”

White Sox catching prospect spoke of his college coach at San Diego State, Tony Gwynn, and his efforts to get him to read swings, and Orton regularly praises Zavala as one of the best game callers in the organization. But a lot of catchers are smart, but don’t have the assertiveness or the feel for when to interject their opinion or to straight-up enforce a change of plans in the middle of a game.

“Trusting what his gut is telling him sometimes,” Orton said. “Guys like Seby and Smitty now are starting to trust what they see. Sometimes when you’re new and it’s your first year and especially if your pitching coach is telling you something, you’re kind of afraid to go away from that if your gut is telling you this is the right pitch and the scouting report is telling you otherwise. It’s hard. As a young guy you’re not going to go against the coaches or against a pitcher who’s been pitching three years in pro ball already.”

That sort of comfort and assertiveness and the building of a relationship with a pitcher can take time, and the relationship part is most difficult of all in the minors. Between promotions and roster attrition, catchers are dealing with and adjusting to ever-changing staffs, and are often operating without much rapport with their battery-mate — all at a time when they themselves are developing their own skills.

The chaos of roster turnover, and the need for an intuitive relationship between pitcher and catcher during a game, is why pitchers tend to latch onto a comfortable pairing, and why guys like Carlos Rodon — who has specifically praised Smith — still works nearly exclusively with Narvaez, to take advantage of the relationship they already have. But if there's so much to overcome for catching prospects to develop their game calling, is it possible to even tell who is going to be good when they're coming up?

“You can. You can tell. You could always tell with Seby that he had a really good feel and instincts about calling a game,” Orton said. “There’s a kid we’ve got in rookie ball, I watch him and think he’s got pretty good feel. It doesn’t show up as much at the lower levels because the pitchers can’t command yet, so there’s not a whole lot you can do sometimes, catching-wise. And that’s [Jhoandro] Alfaro. You can tell who cares, who’s paying attention and trying to think ahead. I don’t know if you can teach someone or help someone. You can help them get better if they want to get better and care. But if someone doesn’t really truly care — they care more maybe about their offense or throwing guys out — they'll probably never, and I say probably never, run a decent game in the greater scheme of things.”

Caring and working hard, like in all elements of catching, can make up for a lot with game calling, which is why the White Sox remain confident with , even though his feel is not up there with some other receivers in the organization just yet.

“If they’re trying and they care,” Orton said. “Then you have to be patient.”