The White Sox’s Arizona Fall League contingent spent the week sending a little bit of everything through the stat line: a rain-shortened shutout loss, a breakout offensive burst, a tense one-run finish, and plenty of pitching work that kept a few arms on track.
Chicago has eight prospects in the Grand Canyon State, led by Caleb Bonemer, the organization’s No. 2 prospect and MLB’s No. 27 overall. He’s joined by Mathias LaCombe, Colby Shelton, Nick Altermatt, Jonathan Clark, Grant Magill, Tommy Vail and Garrett Wright.
Vail was added after Pierce George suffered an olecranon fracture in his pitching elbow. George is expected to participate in 2027 Spring Training.
Anthony DePino was also initially on the Glendale Desert Dogs roster, but he had shoulder surgery and also should be ready for spring.
The White Sox prospects are playing for Glendale, which is sharing a roster with players from the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Desert Dogs entered the week at 5-13.
Their first game of the stretch ended early in a 3-0 loss to Peoria on 10/21/26. Rain cut that one off after six innings, and Glendale never found much rhythm at the plate.
The Dogs had four hits, all singles, and three of them came in the second inning without producing a run. Shelton picked up one of those hits and finished 1-for-2 with a strikeout.
Bonemer, after his hot start to the fall, went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. Magill was also held hitless, going 0-for-2 with a punchout.
A day later, the offense flipped the script in a big way. Glendale rolled past Mesa 10-0 on 10/22/26, and Bonemer was right in the middle of it.
He went 3-for-5 with three RBIs and fell a double shy of the cycle, including a triple to center that came off the bat at 106.9 mph. Magill added a 1-for-4 line, while Shelton drew a walk and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly despite going 0-for-3.
On the mound, the White Sox arms stayed sharp: Altermatt, Clark and LaCombe each threw a hitless, scoreless inning. Altermatt struck out two, and Clark punched out three.
Bonemer’s final appearance came in Glendale’s 5-4 win over Scottsdale on 10/24/26 in an eight-inning game, and even without a hit, his AFL line finished in eye-catching territory. He went 0-for-2 with two walks and a strikeout, closing out 13 games with a .286/.364/.633 slash line, a .996 OPS and three homers in 55 plate appearances.
He also finished tied for the league lead in extra-base hits with nine and second in total bases with 31. The primary goal was outfield reps, and he got them: eight games in center, three in left and one in right.
There were a couple of rough edges along the way, including his lone error in the opener and a fly lost in the sun later, but the assignment was about the work. Bonemer was the only Chicago hitter to appear in that win.
That game also featured two White Sox arms. Wright kept his AFL ERA at 0.00 after a seventh-inning jam started to get sticky: a leadoff single was erased on a catcher pickoff, then a walk, a single and another walk loaded the bases.
Wright struck out the next batter before turning it over to Cristhian Tortosa, who got the final out. Vail made his fall debut in the same game and fired a hitless, scoreless inning with one walk and three strikeouts.
Shelton closed the week with his loudest performance yet, even though Glendale fell 13-12 to Mesa on 10/26/26. The 23-year-old finished 3-for-4 with a walk, four RBIs and two runs scored.
His second AFL homer was a three-run shot that put Glendale up 4-3 in the first, and his RBI single in the seventh cut the deficit to one. That was as close as the Desert Dogs would get.
Through the week, the White Sox hitters on the AFL roster showed the range of what this circuit can do: Bonemer finished at .286/.364/.633 with four doubles, two triples, three homers, six walks, 12 RBIs and 12 strikeouts in 49 at-bats; Magill hit .227/.250/.273 with one double, one walk, four RBIs and nine strikeouts in 22 at-bats; and Shelton posted a .263/.362/.421 line with two homers, six walks, nine RBIs and seven strikeouts in 38 at-bats.
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