Saturday was a highlight-filled day for White Sox prospects across the team's revamped farm system, with plenty of highly-rated youngsters turning in big days. The rundown:
Triple-A Charlotte: Won, 15-5, vs. Norfolk (Baltimore Orioles)
-- Yoan Moncada hit his first home run of the season, pulling a Logan Verrett offering over the right field wall. While the home run was the switch-hitting 21-year-old's only hit, it followed two strong games to begin the season in which Moncada went 7-for-11 witha walk, an RBI, a stolen base and two runs scored.
Video of Moncada's dinger:
-- Moncada's blast was one of six the Knights hit on Saturday. Also going deep: First baseman Danny Hayes (twice, including a grand slam), Willy Garcia, Nicky Delmonico and Jose Vinicio. Delmonico, like Avisail Garcia at the major league level, fell a double shy of the cycle.
-- Right-hander Lucas Giolito wasn't as successful in his first start of 2017, allowing five runs (four earned) on six hits with two walks and four strikeouts over 4 1/3 innings.
MLB
Double-A Birmingham: Won, 8-7, at Jackson (Arizona Diamondbacks)
-- Michael Kopech struck out 10 in only 4 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on three hits with two walks and one home run allowed. To put it another way: 10 of the 13 outs Kopech recorded were strikeouts. The start was Kopech's first start at the Double-A level after he logged 56 1/3 innings (with 86 strikeouts) with the Boston Red Sox Single-A affiliates last year.
Advanced Single-A Winston-Salem: Lost, 9-4, to Buies Creek (Houston Astros)
-- 2016 first-round pick Zack Collins hit his first home run of the year, while outfielder Luis Alexander Basabe walked and stole a base.
Single-A Kannapolis: Lost, 8-4, to Lakewood (Philadelphia Phillies)
-- Dane Dunning, the 22-year-old right-hander acquired from the Washington Nationals in December's Adam Eaton trade, allowed one run on four hits with no walks and eight strikeouts over six innings in his season debut.