Veteran, on the bubble, has a Cactus League game for the ages in 7-3 romp over Cincy
I had been on record saying that this White Sox team will lose at least 120 games in 2025.
However, that was before February 9, when Brandon Drury joined the club on a minor league deal.
Since then, Drury has menacingly mashed as a member of the Sox. Not only does the 10-year player want to spend the year crushing baseballs on the South Side, he may strap the White Sox on his back and alone drag them somewhere south of 120 losses.
Hyperbole? Of course. It’s March 14, these games don’t count, you don’t get a Cadillac much less a Yugo for winning Cactus League MVP, and Dru is coming off of a historically-godawful season for the Angels in 2024. The seeming reason he would have signed with Chicago for 2025 is that his -2.0 WAR would have fit seamlessly into any of the 162 batting orders inked out for the club a year ago. After all, how can you point fingers when they are All So Awful?
But it matters not for a veteran hanging on to his career by a thread. As soon as the calendar clicked to September 30, a -2.0 WAR season was in the rear-view mirror, and 2025 awaited.
And Drury is killing the ball like March 27 can’t come fast enough. He singlehandedly won Friday’s game against the Reds with a two homers as part of a 3-for-3, two-run, five-RBI massacre of Cincy arms. He trickled a double and walked as part of all the debauchery, but all MLB/White Sox can offer up are his two homers as proof of prowess:
Drury now is slashing .364/.400/.718 this spring, with three homers. Put in perspective, it took him 11 times the at-bats (360 vs. 33) to homer just ONCE more than that in all of 2024. For a team still in desperate need of bats, Drury is rapidly nearing the point where his presence on the club for 2025 is assured. He logged time as a first baseman on Friday, but given his positions of strength are third and second base — where the White Sox seem plausibly covered by Miguel Vargas (third) and “the rest” (Lenyn Sosa, Josh Rojas, et. al) — he could well just slide in as a designated hitter who actually hits in his designated times. Hell, at this point, fill Drury in at the organizational-void spot, shortstop; a 9-8 win counts the same as 3-2.
There were other highlights on Friday, but they do not matter. Today belongs to Brandon Drury. Whether this triumph goes down as the final breakout performance of his career or leads to a power-packed renaissance a la Paul DeJong of a year ago matters not.
All Hail Drury.