After stumbling out of the gate, Edgar Quero is starting to show why the White Sox view him as a cornerstone of their future.
As a switch-hitting catcher, Quero possesses one of baseball’s most valuable skill sets. It’s one reason the White Sox included him alongside Kyle Teel in a shared bobblehead giveaway Saturday, highlighting the organization’s vision for its future behind the plate.
Earlier in the season, that vision was in doubt. Quero went his first 86 plate appearances without an extra-base hit and posted a .410 OPS, raising questions about his immediate future. Meanwhile, Teel was sidelined all season with a knee injury, leaving uncertainty about either catcher’s presence for the giveaway.
Come Saturday, Quero was all smiles after delivering what may have been his most complete game of the season in a 7-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers. Quero’s wife threw out the first pitch, then watched her husband go 2-for-3 at the plate with a pair of RBIs.
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The White Sox had Tigers starter Framber Valdez on the ropes early, loading the bases with no outs. It seemed like a big moment for the offense, which was without rookie sensation Munetaka Murakami for the first time all season.
Quero helped Chicago capitalize on Valdez’s early command troubles, lifting a sacrifice fly to center that scored Miguel Vargas to give the White Sox an early 2-0 lead. But after a rocky first inning, Valdez found his rhythm and held the White Sox in check over the next five frames.
After helping guide White Sox starter Anthony Kay through several traffic-filled innings, Quero stepped to the plate to lead off the seventh with Chicago clinging to a 2-1 lead.
When Valdez tried to sneak a looping 78 mph curveball past him, Quero was ready. The catcher drove it 371 feet into the left-field seats for his second home run of the season, providing the White Sox with a much-needed insurance run that helped open the floodgates.
The White Sox tacked on another run in the seventh, then kept piling on in the eighth. Colson Montgomery hit his 14th home run of the season off Tigers reliever Beau Briske. Quero kept the line moving with a single to right field, then came around to score on Andrew Benintendi’s fourth home run of the season to push the lead to 7-1.
After making some adjustments at the plate in the last couple of games, Quero has been hitting the ball hard, and he’s now beginning to reap the rewards. His single in the eighth inning marked his sixth hit in his last five starts, a stretch in which he has also driven in four runs. In his last 15 games, he is slashing .294/.341/.471, with nine RBIs and a pair of homers.
His efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by his teammates, who doused him with an ice bath during his postgame on-field interview.
“He’s making a lot more hard contact,” White Sox manager Will Venable told reporters after the game. “With him it’s been the fastball and making sure he’s on time with the fastball. You’re seeing that more, it’s putting him on time to offspeed stuff in the zone, and like we saw today with the homer. Really good stuff from Edgar recently.”
Despite carrying a .539 OPS, Quero’s underlying metrics paint a more encouraging picture. His 90 mph average exit velocity ranks in the upper half of Major League Baseball, and he has done a solid job of not expanding his strike zone. The bigger issue has been making consistent contact. His whiff rate and strikeout rate both rank among the worst in the league.
Left-handed pitching has also posed a challenge for Quero this season, which is what made his home run off Valdez so encouraging.
Just four of Quero’s 22 hits this season have come against left-handers. However, two of those four hits have left the yard, including a dramatic walk-off home run off Cubs reliever Ryan Rolison in the 10th inning.
But it wasn’t just Quero’s bat that made an impact on Saturday. He called an excellent game behind the plate, despite being battered with multiple foul tips. White Sox pitchers combined for nine strikeouts and allowed just one run.
Quero’s struggles have been well-documented this season. But baseball is a marathon, not a sprint, and a season is not defined by the first two months. Despite Quero’s slow start, the White Sox are finding ways to win. Now with Murakami expected to miss multiple weeks, Quero has another huge opportunity to step up and help fill the void. If his recent surge is any indication, Quero could be poised to help soften the blow.
