Shane Smith Puts Exclamation Point On Standout Rookie Season With White Sox

The 2025 White Sox season ended Sunday in a fitting way, with an outstanding performance from a rookie. That's been a major theme throughout the season, and it's what gives the team hope that they can take another step forward in 2026.

While there's plenty of work still to be done to achieve a successful rebuild, the White Sox built momentum going into the offseason, thanks to another impressive outing from rookie right-hander Shane Smith. In Sunday's 8-0 win over the Washington Nationals, he tossed six shutout innings with one hit, zero walks and eight strikeouts, tied for his season-high.

Smith has been one of the best stories of the 2025 White Sox season, a Rule 5 Draft pick in December who immediately developed into an All-Star. White Sox senior advisor to pitching Brian Bannister said Smith adding changeup and two-seam fastball were big reasons for his improvement, which also speaks to the organization's strides in pitching infrastructure.

"There's gonna be guys that are cast offs from other teams or not protected, and we're able to dig into the science and get a little more out of them and make them very useful for us and give them higher ceilings," Bannister said on Sept. 19. "So it's really been a group effort. We continue to build systems behind the scenes. R&D continues to make progress. ... Things that, I don't want to say long overdue, but it's infrastructure that's much needed for us to be where we want to be and be a playoff team and really compete at the highest level. Kudos to Chris and Jerry, putting a blessing on it all and allowing us to go in and build those systems and kind of start with a blank slate analytically and really collaborate behind the scenes interdepartmentally."

an incredible finish from Shane Smith pic.twitter.com/AvTOxJpi5t
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) September 28, 2025

He was especially sharp to begin Sunday's contest He struck out All-Star James Wood on three pitches in the first at-bat, and cruised through the Nationals lineup with four strikeouts in his first time through the order.

Smith even had a perfect game going with one out in the sixth inning. But a four-seam fastball caught a bit too much of the plate, and Nationals third baseman Brady House broke up the perfect game with a line drive single to right field. Smith limited the damage, though, retiring the next two batters to get out of the sixth inning unscathed.

At just 73 pitches, Smith may have been able to pitch deeper into the game. But the White Sox had a 7-0 lead, so manager Will Venable decided it was it time to end Smith's rookie season on a high note rather than pushing him any further in a season finale between two non-playoff teams.

Shane Smith was DOMINANT in his final start of the season 😤

6 scoreless innings. One hit. No walks. 8 strikeouts. pic.twitter.com/hRgQiNKWva
— White Sox on CHSN (@CHSN_WhiteSox) September 28, 2025

Smith, 25, made 29 starts this season and totaled 146.1 innings, 145 strikeouts and 58 walks to go with a 3.81 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP. He also recorded seven quality starts, eight scoreless outings and 22 starts with three earned runs or less.

Among 82 pitchers with at least 140 innings, Smith ranked 13th in batting average against, 26th in WHIP, 28th in strikeout percentage, 34th in ERA and 43rd in WAR and 44th in FIP. Starts like Sunday's reinforced Smith's case to be penciled in at or near the top of the rotation next season.

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