Eloy Jimenez didn’t have to travel far for his first game in the White Sox organization.
The Sox’s Class A Winston-Salem team happened to be playing Thursday at Myrtle Beach, the team for which Jimenez played this season while with the Cubs. After Jimenez was traded with three other prospects to the Sox for Jose Quintana on Thursday, he simply had to change clubhouses and uniforms.
“It was kind of a surreal situation,” Jimenez said through a Sox interpreter. “But you know, once the game started and I was on the field, it was just baseball.”
Jimenez, now the second-ranked Sox prospect behind Yoan Moncada, played right field and batted cleanup for Winston-Salem, going 1-for-4 with two RBIs. Second baseman Bryant Flete and first baseman Matt Rose, two of the other prospects in the deal, also were in the starting lineup Thursday in a 3-2 victory against their former team.
On a conference call with reporters Friday, Jimenez said he was surprised to learn of the trade, but he thanked the Cubs for treating him “as a son” during his three years in the organization.
“You never know where you are going to find happiness,” Jimenez said of being traded. He went 1-for-3 with a run and two walks his second game for Winston-Salem, a 4-3 victory Friday against Myrtle Beach.
Jimenez said he didn’t know much about the Sox, but he met Moncada while playing with him on the World Team at the All-Star Futures Game the last two years. He said he also knows of right-hander Michael Kopech and catcher Zack Collins from playing against them.
“(Moncada) is a quiet guy, a bashful guy,” Jimenez said. “He didn’t say too much, but he has a hard work ethic. He’s all business when he’s on the team. You can see him focus on the game, focus on the things he has to do. But at the same time, he’s a nice guy.”
Jimenez described himself as a happy and hard-working player. He hit .271 with eight homers, 32 RBIs and a .841 OPS in 42 games with Myrtle Beach after recovering from a bone bruise in his right shoulder early in the year. He said returning to form after the injury wasn’t as difficult as he expected.
“It has taken me time to get to the point where I know that I can still perform,” Jimenez said. “It’s just part of the process when you have an injury. You need time to get to your rhythm and to the point that you used to be before.”
Sox outfield prospect Micker Adolfo is a longtime friend of Jimenez and talked to him after the trade. He called him Jimenez a “nice, humble, disciplined person.”
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“He never changes his mood and is always happy and positive no matter his situation or his results,” Adolfo said through the Sox. “He is always trying to make the people around him better and giving them advice. He will be a great teammate.”
Right-hander Dylan Cease, the fourth prospect in the trade, was added to the roster at Class A Kannapolis on Friday and was driving to meet the team in Greenville, S.C.
