David Sandlin was back with the White Sox for the Cardinals Game, and the timing mattered because Will Venable had already spent heavily from the bullpen the night before. The White Sox needed innings, not another short start, and Sandlin was the arm asked to supply them.
That was the point of the move. Tyler Schweitzer was optioned to AAA as the corresponding transaction, and Sandlin was positioned to work at least five innings if his stuff held up. The White Sox had won last night behind Randal Grichuk’s home run, but they paid for it with a bullpen load that made this game about survival as much as scoring.
Sandlin earned the look by dominating in Charlotte. In his last two AAA outings, he struck out 20 batters in 12.2 innings while allowing only two walks and one earned run. Those numbers are the kind that force a club to ask whether the performance can travel, especially when the major league version has been managed more carefully.
That caution has been real. In five major league appearances this season, Sandlin was allowed to throw more than 80 pitches in only four of them, a sign that the White Sox had not yet trusted him to go deep every time out. The question now was not whether he had shown enough in Charlotte. It was whether he could turn that into length against a Cardinals lineup that had already seen enough of the White Sox’ relief arms.
Michael McGreevy was on the other side for St. Louis, bringing a split profile that made the matchup worth watching. He carried a 3.01 ERA in the first half, then a 5.68 ERA in the second half, with hitters batting.297/.350/.493 against him after the break. Right-handed hitters were batting.292 against him at Busch Stadium, while left-handed batters were at.304 with a.536 slugging percentage against his fastballs. His sinker had accounted for 38.4% of his pitches against righties, and his changeup had held lefties to a.202 batting average.
For Venable, the rest of the plan was thin enough to matter. Trevor Richards, Jordan Hicks and Bryan Hudson looked like the bullpen options behind Sandlin, while Urquidy was the fallback if the start went sideways and a bulk inning was needed. That is the pressure point here: Sandlin was brought back because the White Sox needed length, not because they had a comfortable margin for error.
The larger context is that the White Sox were staring at a Cleveland series and could use every inning they can save now. Sandlin has been getting beyond the fifth in AAA, and that makes this more than a spot start. If he carries that form into the Cardinals Game, the White Sox get a starter who changes the shape of the night and takes strain off a bullpen that had already done enough yesterday.
