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Spinning in cycles.

Spinning in cycles.

Plus, the White Sox's pitching staff is unhittable.

Patrick Norton
April 01, 2025

Good morning!

I wasn't super thrilled to be awake as late as I was last night. These West Coast start times are starting to get to me.

Carson Kelly made it all worth it.

Nothing like a backup catcher hitting the Cubs' first cycle since Mark Grace did it in 1993. And the feat just always seems more special when a triple is the last leg.

In what still would've been a memorable 18-3 shellacking over the Athletics, as the baseball players formerly known as Oakland played their first home game in Sacramento at an MiLB stadium, Kelly's cycle added a historic stamp.

– Patrick Norton

White Sox starters off to historic start

The White Sox are four games into their 2025 regular season schedule, and their starting staff has yet to surrender an earned run.

Sean Burke (6 IP), Jonathan Cannon (5 IP), Davis Martin (6 IP), and Martín Pérez (6 IP) have combined to spin 23 innings without allowing an earned run. Two unearned runs against Martin on Sunday are the only runs scored against the rotation in the regular season.
The White Sox became the fifth team in major league history whose starting pitchers allowed no earned runs in their first four games of the regular season and the first team to do so since the 2019 Blue Jays. The 2013 Giants, 1976 Brewers, and 1914 Red Sox also completed the feat.
The streak is now in the hands of Tuesday night's probable starter, Shane Smith. A neat twist? Smith, 24, will be making his major league debut against the Twins at Rate Field. No pressure, kid.

Well, this is easily a much better start to the year than any of us could've expected. In our staff season predictions, all of us projected at least 100 losses. That's still a very real possibility, but not if the pitching staff keeps this up.

Remember when Burke got the Opening Day nod, and we were all a bit perplexed? Perhaps manager Will Venable knows what he's doing. That idea just came as such a shock against the norm that we barely gave him a chance.

The bats have come alive more often than not, too. In fact, their +14 run differential is second-best in the American League and fourth-best in the entire majors.

In four games, the product just looks completely different. The team is incredibly young but well-disciplined and does not make the constant mental and fielding errors that made this club so difficult to stomach under the previous manager.

And their 2-2 start is the club's best start since 2023 when Pedro Grifol began his managerial tenure 2-2. He finished April with an 8-21 record, so Venable has a relatively low bar to clear.

Not-so-fun fact: Grifol got back up to .500 at 3-3 through six games. That was the last time the ex-White Sox manager would be at the .500 mark. He managed 273 more games before his dismissal.

GO DEEPER: Sean Anderson was joined by Mark Carman to discuss the Sox's big win, the pitching staff and the return to .500.

Quick Hits

The Bulls got absolutely smoked against the NBA-best Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night. Chicago trailed by as much as 43 in the third quarter, losing 145-117. With the loss, the Bulls slipped back into the No. 10 seed but still hold the right to a play-in spot by five games. The magic number is TWO.
ICYMI: Adam Hoge sat down with Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson for an exclusive one-on-one from the NFL Annual Meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. Johnson dove into draft prospects, coaching philosophies, and more!

The interview [YouTube]

The interview [Transcript]

Hoge's Takeaways

My Bears Mailbag