Only one spot left on Chicago White Sox's opening-day roster
With the regular season opening on Monday night against the Athletics in Oakland, the Chicago White Sox's 25-man roster is coming into full view.
Before Tuesday's 6-2 Cactus League win over the Texas Rangers, the Sox optioned infielders Matt Davidson, Carlos Sanchez, Leury Garcia and relief pitcher Tommy Kahnle to Class AAA Charlotte and assigned outfielder Jason Coats to minor-league camp.
The White Sox have 31 players left in major-league camp.
Manager Robin Ventura told reporters the Sox are going with a 12-man pitching staff to open the season.
In order, Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Carlos Rodon, Mat Latos and John Danks comprise the starting rotation.
The bullpen features closer David Robertson, followed by Nate Jones, Zach Duke, Matt Albers, Jake Petricka, Zach Putnam and Dan Jennings.
The White Sox will go with two new catchers, Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro, with Jose Abreu, Brett Lawrie, Jimmy Rollins and Todd Frazier the starters from first base to third in the infield and Tyler Saladino serving as the utility man.
The outfield is Melky Cabrera, Adam Eaton, Austin Jackson, Avisail Garcia and J.B. Shuck. The first four are candidates at designated hitter, where there is a void after Adam LaRoche's well-publicized retirement earlier this month.
That leaves one roster spot open, and it shapes up as a battle between Travis Ishikawa and Jerry Sands.
Both players can back up Abreu at first base, an obvious requirement with LaRoche off the roster.
Both players are having good springs - Ishikawa is batting .283 with 2 home runs and 7 RBI while Sands is batting .200 with 3 home runs and 9 RBI.
The guess here is Ishikawa, who hit a walk-off home run to win the 2014 NLCS for the San Francisco Giants, gets the final spot.
He's a left-handed hitter with power, a need for the White Sox. Sands is a right-handed hitter.
"These aren't easy decisions," manager Robin Ventura told reporters on Tuesday. "You like a lot of things about a lot of guys, but when you start looking at your roster and what you'll need and what you'll probably use, that's why you make those decisions."
Davidson was the biggest surprise in camp.
A proven power hitter at Charlotte, the third baseman also led the International League in strikeouts in each of the last two seasons.
This spring, Davidson appeared to salvage his future with the Sox, batting .413 with 5 homers and 9 RBI.
"His swing is much lower maintenance than it's been at any point in his career with us," White Sox general manager Rick Hahn told reporters Tuesday. "Frankly the fact he put himself in the mix for consideration to break with the club shows how far he's come in a short period of time. There's an old spring training axiom: You try not to fall too much in love with young players or out of love with veteran players based on spring results.
"It's important for Matt and some of our other young players who had good springs to head on out to our affiliates and pick up where they left off, continue that momentum."