Tommy Pham has an intense work ethic. In the offseason, he trains in combat sports, which doesn’t seem to jive with playing baseball. He shared that look into his life during his first stint with the White Sox in 2024 after a near-dustup with Brewers catcher Willson Contreras.
“I’ll never start anything, but I’ll be prepared to finish it,” Pham said then. “There’s a reason I do all kinds of fighting in the offseason, because I’m prepared to [expletive] somebody up.”
On Saturday, his intensity came back to bite him when he strained his left calf while doing defensive work on the field, and the Sox put him on the 10-day injured list.
Yes, we’re talking about practice; not a game.
“The thing with Tommy is,” manager Will Venable explained, “whether he’s in there every day or not, he’s an extremely hard worker. He stays very active, does a lot of things to take care of himself. As he was working out on the field, he felt something in his calf that grabbed on him. It was significant enough to put him on IL.”
The move is retroactive to Sept. 3, the day after Pham appeared as a pinch hitter in the only game of his second stint with the Sox since being acquired Aug. 31 from the Phillies.
Edgar Quero was the beneficiary of Pham’s misfortune. The Sox called him up from Triple-A Charlotte for his fourth stint this season, giving them three catchers on the expanded roster — four if you count Drew Romo, who’s sticking around on the taxi squad. Kyle Teel returned from a sprained ankle Friday, and the Sox kept Jake Rogers active while optioning Romo.
Though Quero is a switch-hitter, he’s a better right-handed hitter, and Venable said that’s why the Sox brought him back.
“Tommy’s role was really [as a] right-handed bat against lefties,” he said. “As we evaluated the options, we felt very confident that Quero was the next-best guy to fill that void.”
In 65 games with the Sox, Quero is batting .208/.279/.262 with three homers, 19 RBI and 16 walks. He’s batting .236 right-handed and .164 left-handed, though all three of his homers have come left-handed.
Bullpen saves the day
Everything went according to plan in the Sox’ 10-1 victory Sunday night against the Twins: The offense scored in all sorts of ways, and the coaching staff successfully pieced together a bullpen day. But one piece was more impressive than the others.
Rookie left-hander Hagen Smith went a season-high three innings, one more than planned, and looked sharp doing it. He faced the minimum nine batters and struck out four, earning the win.
“He covered an extra inning for us, which is huge,” Venable said. “He is really special when he’s in the zone. He’s hard to square up, gets a ton of swing and miss, gets chase. He’s impressive.”
“Just being efficient, getting through at-bats quick,” said Smith, who improved to 3-1 out of the bullpen. “Just attacking the zone and trusting my defense and my stuff.”
Five Sox pitchers combined to allow four hits and one walk and strike out 15.
“The line for the bullpen speaks for itself,” Venable said.
Antonacci hits 3 doubles
Sam Antonacci entered Sunday with a .183 batting average, .602 OPS and three doubles in his previous 22 games. He equaled those doubles Sunday, going 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBI.
His third double was typical Antonacci. With the Sox leading 1-0 in the sixth and runners on second and third, he hit a bouncer that deflected off second baseman Kody Clemens, who was playing in, and into center field. Both runners scored, and Antonacci hustled into second.
“I feel like I have a good knack for knowing when I can take that extra base and when not,” he said. “Obviously, at times I get in trouble with it. But hopefully more times than not I’m successful at it.”
About that time
What was with the odd 5:20 p.m. start time for the Sox’ series finale Sunday against the Twins?
NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball” games typically start at 6:20. But because the Twins have a day game Monday in Detroit, MLB worked with NBC to move the game Sunday up one hour and asked the Tigers to move the game Monday from 1:10 to 3:10 to give the Twins more time to travel.
The Twins-Sox game aired on Peacock and NBC Sports Network because NBC carried the Notre Dame-Wisconsin football game.