Updates on a Few Injured Sox

The White Sox family expanded by one today—and not in the form of a new player being promoted.

Avisail Garcia and his wife welcomed the couple’s second child Thursday, a boy that they have named simply “Avi.”

Garcia, who was not in the White Sox lineup on Thursday in anticipation of the birth of his child, will likely be ready to go for tomorrow’s series opener against the Detroit Tigers at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“I know, had we been out of town, he probably would take his [paternity] leave,” Manager Rick Renteria said of Garcia. “But it seems like he might be able and available for us tomorrow, so we’ll play it by ear.”

“I’m going to give him as much time as he needs,” Renteria said. “If he wants to come in late to be able to come out and play tomorrow night I’ll do that. Anything I can do to accommodate, whatever he wants to do to allow him to be here with us.”

Since Garcia was reinstated from the disabled list, he has been on a tear in the month of August, hitting .420/.455/.500. He’s only struck out nine times in 50 at-bats.

“His at-bats have been pretty good,” Renteria said. “Yesterday he ended up driving a ball to the right side that was a pretty good pitch, he’s looked fine.”

White Sox catcher Geovany Soto is still on the road to recovery after being placed on the 60-day DL in May while he underwent arthroscopic elbow debridement surgery.

“Physically everything is 100% inside the arm, they’re just kind of waiting on the healing and on the process of strengthening so that’s where I’m at right now,” Soto said on Thursday.

“We still have to see how everything responds and everything has been going great. So, I just want to feed off of that and just worry about that right now.”

Soto is not currently participating in baseball activity and is mainly working on strengthening his arm in anticipation of his return to play.

Despite his lack of time spent on the field, Soto has been keeping a close eye on White Sox’s progression lately, and still looks for ways to contribute inside the clubhouse.

“We’ve got great guys here, the most important is that they come up here and they want to learn,” Soto said of the recent influx of new young talent, particularly pitchers. “They want to get with the program, and a lot of them look for help and it’s really refreshing to see. We’re here to help them and guide them. I’ve been around and every time they come home I try to help them out, give them my two cents whatever the situation might be to try to help them.”

After 13 years in the majors, Renteria knows that despite Soto’s playing time this season, he is still able to serve as a strong veteran catching leader.

“Obviously his experience, his time, conversations when he’s watching catchers take the hitter through a particular sequence, once they come in [he might] share with them the confirmation that they did a nice job,” Renteria said of Soto.

“[He offers] validation as to what [hitters] did in that particular situation or [he might] talk them through something that they might have done a little differently in order to help a pitcher through,” Renteria continued. “He’s been around, he can see things from the dugout, he can see what the catchers are doing he can see what the pitchers are doing and just continue to relate and have conversations [with players].”

No time table has been set for Soto’s return.

Matt Davidson has began in rehab assignment with the Charlotte Knights, after a rainout on Wednesday, Davidson started as a the designated hitter in the makeup game on Thursday afternoon. He went 0-3 with three strikeouts against Norfolk. Davidson is currently rehabbing the injury he sustained after taking a pitch off the wrist from Marcus Stroman, and was placed on the DL on August 4 for a bruised wrist.