Jaden Fauske singled to lead off Sunday’s game for Class A Kannapolis against the Fayetteville (N.C.) Woodpeckers.
The Nazareth graduate singled again in the seventh. And in the ninth, the outfielder homered.
“I had to grind out some of those at-bats, seeing the ball well,” Fauske said during a videoconference call Friday morning. “My swing was feeling good. It was a pretty good day.”
It was the second three-hit performance in three games for the 2025 second-round draft pick, who is the No. 7 prospect in the Chicago White Sox system according to MLB.com.
“I’ve had a pretty solid last two or three weeks or so,” said Fauske, who also drew a walk in the game. “Made a few adjustments with my swing. But most of it is just game planning, how I’m going into games, into at-bats — like with a specific plan against pitchers.
“We had one of our hitting coordinators in town a couple weeks ago, Sherman Johnson (Jr.), and we really hammered in a game-plan approach of just thought process going into at-bats against certain guys based on what kind of stuff they have. And I feel like I’ve really carried that into my last stretch of games and it’s really helped me.”
Fauske had a .250/.371/.390 slash line with seven doubles, seven triples, four home runs and 25 RBIs in 63 games for Kannapolis coming into Friday.
“I would say the biggest thing is adjusting to playing every day, or pretty much every day,” said Fauske, who is 19. “It’s just different. High school you’d play at most maybe three times a week, and now you’re looking at playing five to six times a week. And a lot of it just comes down to learning to take care of your body. Recovery. All that stuff. It is a grind and it is a lot. That’s the biggest adjustment for me going from high school to playing at this level now.”
Those adjustments are both physical and mental.
“The physical part is obvious, the toll on your body playing every single day,” he said. “And then mental, it’s learning that maybe you had a bad game or two bad games and you have to be mentally prepared to go and play the next day. And be able to forget about that, make adjustments and move forward.”
Fauske collected multiple hits in four of his last six games entering Friday. He has been a menace on the basepaths with 21 stolen bases.
“So far it’s been pretty successful and for me it’s something that I think it’d be part of my game moving forward,” Fauske said of stealing. “It’s something where I can help change the game on the bases.”
It has been nearly a year since the Sox selected Fauske in the draft. And he has “enjoyed all” aspects of the early portions of his professional journey.
“It’s been great,” he said. “It’s just a constant process of failing and then learning from it. Ups and downs, it’s learning how to be a professional. That’s what you hear every day from coaches and the coordinators who are in town. It’s just learning how to be a professional.
“It’s been really fun to be a part of the squad here. You can say what you want about the significance of winning at this level, but this team, we go out and try to win every single day and we play for each other. It’s been great. I really enjoy it.”
Fauske grew up rooting for the Sox in Willowbrook
“Just the idea of potentially playing for my hometown team is pretty cool to think about,” Fauske said. “It’s something I look forward to, and understanding that there’s a long way to go and a lot of work to be done.”
That work, offensively, includes continuing to learn at-bat to at-bat.
“It’s being able to make adjustments as soon as possible so it’s not a week-to-week thing, it’s not a game-to-game thing, it can be an at-bat to an at-bat thing, and then even a pitch-to-pitch thing,” Fauske said. “That’s what the guys at the highest level are able to do. They’re able to make adjustments on the fly, and I think that just comes with playing and going through a course of a season is just learning how to do that, facing new arms.
“Every night you just see a new arm that you’ve just never seen before. I think that’s the biggest thing for me on the offensive side. And then it’s just continuing to be a sponge and soak everything up.”
