{"id":908615,"date":"2026-07-03T00:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/908615\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T00:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:00:22","slug":"chicago-white-sox-jacob-gonzalez-making-contributions-to-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/908615\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago White Sox: Jacob Gonzalez making contributions to lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 The Chicago White Sox already had scored two runs in the third inning Tuesday in Baltimore<\/a> in the form of a Colson Montgomery home run.<\/p>\n

They were looking for more, with Jacob Gonzalez batting with the bases loaded.<\/p>\n

\u201cInfield was in, so I was trying to get the ball in the air,\u201d Gonzalez said Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

The rookie first baseman lined a low Trey Gibson fastball to left field for a two-run single.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, (the liner) was low enough to be a hit, and two runs scored,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

It was the first of three hits on the night and his second straight multihit performance against the Orioles.<\/p>\n

\u201cFelt good,\u201d Gonzalez, 24, said. \u201cJust doing whatever I could to help the team win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez continues to contribute after being called up from Triple-A Charlotte on May 30<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool to be up here, but this team\u2019s been a lot of fun, and it\u2019s a cool group of guys,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cIt feels like half the team is rookies, which is pretty cool. And it\u2019s just fun to win with these guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all care and we all really want to do something here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoWhite Sox first baseman Jacob Gonzalez hits a walk-off single in the ninth inning against the Royals on June 27, 2026, at Rate Field. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Entering Thursday\u2019s series opener against the second-place Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, Gonzalez was slashing .423\/.483\/.692 (11-for-26) with one home run and 12 RBIs in his last seven games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bat is moving well,\u201d manager Will Venable said Tuesday. \u201cHe understands how to negotiate some of these close pitches. He\u2019s doing a good job controlling the zone, and when it\u2019s in the zone he\u2019s hitting it hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Elias, Gonzalez is the first Sox rookie to drive in 12 runs in a five-game stretch (June 26-30) since Jos\u00e9 Abreu from April 23-27, 2014. That included five RBIs on June 26<\/a> against the Kansas City Royals and a walk-off hit against the Royals the next day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He is 8-for-16 with 14 RBIs with runners in scoring position this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great for us to have somebody we can put down in the lineup that can produce and slug for us, and hit doubles and homers and stuff,\u201d Montgomery said Tuesday.\u00a0\u201cHe came up here and he was hot and then it\u2019s just like anything, they adjust to you, so he was in an adjustment period and I think he\u2019s made the adjustment and he\u2019s swinging it well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, the 2023 first-round pick had a .253 average with two home runs, 17 RBIs and 11 runs in 25 games coming into Thursday.<\/p>\n

Recent adjustments have been helpful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI essentially was getting too narrow in my stance, which I didn\u2019t realize, so I just widened back up and was making sure I wasn\u2019t too turned,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cI\u2019m just happy that I\u2019m helping us score, helping us win some games, and hopefully we keep it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe widening, I would say, is just allowing me to not over-rotate. So then I\u2019m able to get my hips cleared faster. So I\u2019m able to just not be late as often.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez has aided the bottom of the lineup for the Sox, who entered Thursday with a one-game lead in the AL Central. He was in the No. 9 spot on the night he had five RBIs against the Royals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really been impressive and it\u2019s developed throughout the year,\u201d Venable said before Thursday\u2019s game of the team\u2019s production from the last three spots in the lineup. \u201cTo give these guys credit, early in the year, at the bottom of the order, it was let\u2019s find a way to squeak one out. You saw a lot of (safety squeezes) and situational stuff and we kind of moved away from that because of Tristan (Peters) and (Gonzalez) performing at such a high level, slugging, having these quality at-bats where they are able to do damage and then produce just like the top of the order.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s evolved into that and really a credit to those two guys, and (Luisangel) Acu\u00f1a is the same way \u2014 he\u2019s performed much better here of late. So, these guys are all in their good spot to contribute at high levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Gonzalez is adapting to facing big-league pitching, he\u2019s also learning more defensively at first base.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel good,\u201d said Gonzalez, who largely played shortstop this year with Charlotte. \u201cObviously some early mistakes, but hopefully those mistakes are behind me, and I\u2019m just going to keep on learning the position, keep on working at it, and hopefully good stuff happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzalez\u2019s favorite aspect since arriving has been how the team continues to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cLate in games, we don\u2019t give up,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go out there, and we\u2019re going to do our thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 The Chicago White Sox already had scored two runs in the third inning Tuesday in Baltimore…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":908616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,1274,1282,29987,5386,1818,216994,67277,13250],"class_list":["post-908615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-colson-montgomery","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-jacob-gonzalez","tag-luisangel-acuna","tag-will-venable"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116853109387439683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}