These are the last games of the regular season for the White Sox minors, but thanks to those heroic Birmingham Barons, this is not our final Minor League Update! There will be at least two more next week, as our Double-A affiliate chases a second straight Southern League title!
With Charlotte’s split on Saturday, it finished 20 games underwater, at 65-85. However, the good news (?) is that the nightcap win eluded worst-in-system status; had the Knights lost, their .427 winning percentage would have
tumbled lower than the Winston-Salem Dash (.431).
In full, the White Sox full-season system finished 18 games worse than .500, with Birmingham (81-57) the only winning team. Kannapolis (64-68) made a run to respectability, while Charlotte (65-85) and Winston-Salem (56-74) trailed, badly.
One day, the ballyhooed White Sox system, chock-full of prospects, will actually win some games.
Durham Bulls 5, Charlotte Knights 1 (7 innings) (Statcast box)
Charlotte Knights 3, Durham Bulls 2 (7 innings) (Statcast box)
The Knights said goodbye to beautiful Truist Field with a split decision on Saturday, with both games featuring —uncommon given the confines — tepid hitting from the Good Guys.
In the opener, the Knights mustered five singles and a walk through seven innings, with Corey Julks providing the only XBH, a double. But kudos to Corey, who finished his year in Charlotte hitting exactly .300, tops in the lineup today and best of any Knight playing 30 games or more in 2025.
Bryce Wilson, fairly used and abused by the White Sox this season between spot starts, DFAs, jerking back and forth between MLB and Triple-A, got one more hosing on Saturday, taking the loss despite one earned over four innings. I mean, it’s Bryse Wilson, so the game wasn’t clean, but it’s only right he was done dirty once more this season. (Three runs entered on BW’s tally, but two came unearned courtesy of a Jacob Gonzalez error in the fourth.
Jario Iriarte took the seventh and capped a disastrous season with two earned on three hits, including a homer. Last year’s brilliance (Double-A to the majors, and holding his own with the big boys) gave way to a 7.13 ERA and nearly 2.00 WHIP.
How about let’s move on to the betterness of the nightcap?
That game featured the same combination of hits and walks, except for the fact that the one extra-base knock was a home run, hit by the clinging-to-life Bryan Ramos. Ramos was another Knight who took a step back in 2025, and now has no clear path to advancement after a .216/.309/.396 slash over 105 games. The other big bat in the game was Tim Elko, who’s at least proven he can dominate Triple-A: Two hits today and a near-.300 finish plus a .909 OPS. Again, he has no clear path to the majors, having faltered under the big lights and buried on a depth chart perpetually brimming with 1Bs.
Knights manager Sergio Santos chased his Southern League title as a White Sox managing rookie with this mess of a Triple-A season. Surely it is little fault of the ex-closer that Triple-A is increasingly more scrapyard than talent depot. If he comes back in 2026, perhaps some of that sweet Barons talent matriculates and has his back.
