Chicago White Sox Make Roster Move To Refresh Pitching Staff

CHICAGO –– The White Sox have a new starter for Tuesday's 6:10 p.m. CT game against the Detroit Tigers.

Right-hander Yoendrys Gomez has been promoted from Triple-A Charlotte, where he recorded a 2.12 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP across 14 appearances, 11 starts and 46.2 innings. He replaces right-hander Elvis Peguero, who was optioned to Charlotte after pitching 1.2 innigns on Monday during his White Sox debut.

"Had to send Peguero out, which we didn’t want to do," Venable said before Tuesday's game. "It was our second wave of having to do that now as we try to navigate and survive some of these games with our bullpen."

The White Sox pitching staff has been in flux of late for a few reasons. They lost a starter on July 31, when they traded Adrian Houser to the Tampa Bay Rays. On Friday, they optioned starter Jonathan Cannon to Triple-A after he gave up seven earned runs in 1.2 innings in Seattle. They're als still waiting on veteran left-handed starter Martín Pérez to return from an elbow injury that has sidelined him since April.

Those absences have been amplified by the fact that a White Sox starter has not pitched more than five innings since Aaron Civale's 6.1-inning outing on Aug. 2. As a result, the bullpen has been asked to carry the load more than usual, leading to a few roster moves this week to refresh the pitching staff.

"We're grinding, yeah. But you always go through stretches in the year where that happens," said Tyler Alexander, who pitched 4.1 innings out of the bullpen on Monday. "Starters will pick you up, there will be weeks, maybe a month, where we don't throw that much, which is normally a good thing."

"Then we'll have weeks or months where we pick up the starters and eat bulk innings and guys are going back to back, three out of four, four out of five. And those stretches are tough, but it's part of the job. And guys like Vasil and I, we're length and we come in and we try to throw as many ups as we can and it definitely feels good being able to pick the guys up."

The White Sox claimed Gomez, 25, a 6-foot-3 right-hander, off waiver from the Los Angeles Dodgers in May. Across 3.1 innings and three appearances out of the bullpen, he allowed five hits and three earned runs while walking two batters and striking out two.

Gomez has spent most of the season with the Triple-A Charlotte Knights, where he was stretched out into a starting role. He's thrown at least 69 pitches in each of his last eight outings while allowing three earned runs or fewer in each one. That stretch features a high strikeout rate, with 64 strikeouts in 46.2 innings.

"Having Gómez here to start the game, he’s pitched up to 88 pitches in five innings in the minor leagues. So expect some length from him, which we’ll need," Venable said. "We do have some guys behind him with [Mike] Vasil fully charged and some other guys who will be available."

[Gomez has] a lot of pitches that he throw. The big kind of step forward with him was that he was throwing them for strikes. The opportunity for improvement for him when we got him and he’s done a nice job of going to work and being competitive in the zone with all his pitches."

Pérez has made two rehab starts in the minor leagues and rejoined the White Sox in Chicago, but there's not definitive timetable on his return.

"It’s day by day. We’re continuing to discuss it as our needs here change and as he gets closer to being available," Venable said. "At some point soon those things will line up. As far as a plan that’s in place right now, there isn’t. We’re just taking it day by day."

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