Josh Nelson talks potential Sox trade targets, Will Venable's positivity

episode

Rahimi & Grote Show 17 min 3 speakers 4 chapters transcribed 2 months ago

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: chapters · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Mark Grote 0:01

Sox machine. For Hebe Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. Let's talk White Sox. They'd win their post-All-Star break series in Canada over the Blue Jays. They take two out of three. An impressive 12-4 win on Friday. A big nothing on Saturday. They lose 1-0 to the Jays that day. They got Shane Bieber, I guess you could say. And then the nice comeback, real nice win yesterday for the White Sox, 3-0 over the Blue Jays.

How did the White Sox perform in the recent Toronto series and why does it matter?

Mark Grote 0:35

And the man in studio with Marshall Harris and I, Mark Grody, to discuss this is Josh Nelson of the Sox Machine. He is the host of the Sox Machine podcast, which is now part of the Foul Territory Network. Josh, thanks so much for coming in studio with us.

Josh Nelson 0:52

Thank you so much for having me on again. It's great to be back. It's great to be talking about a winning White Sox team. We'll have to work on that new intro, Ray, because I'm sure some of my sound bites are back from like 2021 and 2022. But it's a great time to be a White Sox fan.

Mark Grote 1:11

It really is. We were talking about this last night on Fox 32, doing the TV thing last night, and that is, even if you think, if it feels like, okay, whatever this magical season is, like it's coming down and the Sox go on a little losing streak, and you think, okay, maybe this is not for real, and then all of a sudden it feels real again. How important was just this series alone to do what they did against Toronto to restart what the White Sox have going on?

Josh Nelson 1:40

It sparks a lot of conversation for those that cover teams in the American League because Toronto's in the same bucket as Detroit. Are they going to have another run before the deadline? This is a veteran team. This is the reigning American League pennant winners in the Toronto Blue Jays. Is this when they start their run against the White Sox at home? For the White Sox to go to Toronto and beat that veteran team and only allow five runs over three games where run prevention has been an issue for the White Sox away from right field, I think is a very encouraging sign. In their last 10 road games, the White Sox are 6-4. They won that series in Baltimore, they won the series in Toronto, and they had that series split against Cleveland.

Josh Nelson 2:20

This is another tough test. They're facing the American League West leading Texas Rangers. And in a weird way, even though the Rangers are 50 and 49, this could be a preview of the American League Division Series postseason matchup between the White Sox and Rangers because these two teams are leading 50. their respective divisions, and I'm sorry for chuckling, but I don't think anybody was expecting that before this season started. But that's what makes this fun, and we'll see how these next three games go for the White Sox, but the way that they came out of that All-Star break and executed offensively and pitching on Friday and Sunday, and even Saturday on the pitching side as well, Davis Meyer thought was good.

Josh Nelson 3:03

Very encouraging.

Marshall Harris 3:04

The best part about this being a potential ALDS preview is that If the season ended today, it'd be the White Sox waiting to see if Texas could fight through the wild card round to face them. That's what's beautiful about this. Well, look, here's my favorite stat right now about the White Sox. We talk about, oh, are the Tigers in it? Are the Minnesota Twins going to catch them? The Twins are four games back and in third place in the AL Central. The Tigers even further at six and a half games back. The White Sox are actually closer to the best record in the American League than the Tigers are to them. They're only four games back of the Tampa Bay Rays and the best record in the American League. You mentioned it, the fact that they only gave up the five runs.

Marshall Harris 3:42

You look back at their last six games. They've given up seven runs over six games. I always thought the White Sox offense would be where it is, if not better. but I did not imagine that the pitching would be this good. What do you think has been the biggest difference in a lot of these arms we saw last year, but now what they've become this year?

Josh Nelson 4:01

I think on the starting front, like Sean Burke attacking the strike zone.