Mike Tauchman Returns To Chicago White Sox Lineup With Precautions

CHICAGO –– Mike Tauchman returned to the White Sox lineup for Tuesday's 6:40 p.m. CT game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Rate Field. He did not play in the last four games due to right groin soreness.

Tauchman suffered the injury while running home from third base in an attempt to score the winning run in Game 2 of Sunday's doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals.

"We were on contact there and I tried to get a good jump off the ground ball, and I kind of felt my groin kind of lock up on me in the first couple of steps," Tauchman said before Tuesday's game. "Obviously that was really frustrating. Some of the preliminary testing suggested maybe it wasn’t going to be anything very significant, I guess. And very pleased with how it’s responded each day since."

"Waking up the next day in Toronto, felt pretty good, which gave us confidence that hopefully this wasn’t going to be something that was super long term. And continued to be really aggressive with the treatments there and last couple of days running through a checklist of how things felt and it’s continued to get better every day. I’m optimistic that going to be able to kind of get back out there and help the boys."

Tauchman said he feels confident he can have productive at-bats and contribute in the lineup. He's been one of the team's more productive hitters when healthy, slashing .258/.365/.464 with four home runs, 14 RBIs, six doubles, 17 walks and 25 strikeouts through 115 plate appearances.

On Tuesday, he's back in the leadoff spot as the designated hitter. He took fly balls for the first time on Monday, and he'll continue to test his injury in that manner before games moving forward. For the time being, Venable isn't pushing him to immediately return to the outfield.

"Just want to give him a chance to ease back into it. I think if we asked him to, he would be able to [play the field]," Venable said Tuesday. "As we try to figure out is this an IL thing or give time to as we have transitioned from a couple of days and then into using him and feeling good about it, we thought not exposing him to the field would be a good idea."

"I think he and for a couple of our other guys, using [the designated hitter] spot as a way to get guys off their feet is something we will definitely do. Certainly Tauch is someone we want to make sure we are caring for the right way and that he has had these injuries and we know how valuable he is to us. We will see him at DH. Others can benefit from that as well. We’ll take it day by day. Certainly we’ll see him off his feet at times in the DH spot."

Tauchman avoided a third stint on the injured list this time around, but he's still mindful of his previous injuries. He began the season on the injured list with a strained right hamstring. And when he returned, he played just three games before heading to the injured list for a second time with a right hamstring strain. That caused him to miss about six weeks of action in April and May.

It still seems to be affecting his style of play to some degree.

"My whole life, it's been: Hit the ball, run like hell, take extra bases, do all this stuff. And I felt like I was working back toward that before Thursday," Tauchman said. "It hasn't been where I wanted it to be, but I'm still trying to contribute on the bases and take advantage of things, like when I feel I can get an extra step or two on a leadoff or on a secondary lead to try to close the distance down or anticipate a dirt ball here or there. It's been frustrating, but it's kind of continued to be kind of a work in progress."

"This is certainly unique in the amount of kind of soft-tissue issues that I’ve had. I’ve been pretty fortunate in my career, put a lot of effort into staying on the field, playing a certain style of baseball. Not being able to completely play that way this year has been frustrating, and a little bit mentally taxing. But that’s part of it, right? The training staff has done a really good job, the strength staff has done a really good job, and we’ve all sort of collaborated. I know this happened last week, but I feel like the plan we have on a day to day basis is really good and thoughtful and just kind of continue to take steps in the right direction probably through the rest of the year.

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