Shane Smith Rebounding From Rough Mid-Season Stretch

Aug 30, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Shane Smith (64) delivers a pitch against the New York Yankees during the first inning at Rate Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

After the first month of the season, it appeared that the White Sox had gotten the Rule 5 pick of the decade. They nabbed Shane Smith from the Brewers in the December Rule 5 draft, and by the end of April, it looked like Milwaukee had made a mistake in letting him go.

Through six starts that month, Smith had a 2.23 ERA and he had already throw two quality starts while narrowly missing a third in his first outing of the season, on April 1 against the Twins. Smith was just about as good in May, and by that time he had inserted himself into the All-Star conversation. Not just because every team needs to have a representative, but because his pitching was getting attention outside of Chicago.

But then, as tends to happen to rookies, Smith hit a rough patch. Adjustments are key to being successful in baseball, and the league had started to figure him out. Smith posted a 5.60 ERA in four June starts and then 9.75 in three starts the next month. He went into the All-Star break on the worst stretch of starts he’d had all season.

Smith hit the disabled list with a left ankle sprain just after the All-Star game, but he attributed his struggles in June and July to getting away from what had made him successful in the first two months of the season.

“If anybody’s going to beat me, it’s going to be me,” Smith told reporters of the lessons he learned during that stretch. “It’s kind of like how I was in that rough stretch. I was beating myself a little bit with not staying aggressive and not throwing pitches in the zone and not attacking hitters.

“But yea, definitely a learning curve. And, you know, I learned a whole bunch of stuff from that, but it’s just realizing my stuff is good enough.”

His best stuff is a pair of high-powered fastballs. Smith’s four-seamer and sinker both average over 95 miles per hour, and it’s that fourseam fastball in particular that opposing hitters can’t hit all the well – Smith is holding them to a .186 batting average with that pitch – and when he compliments those fastballs with a filthy changeup and breaking pitches, then Smith is very tough to face.

The adjustments he has made – which basically have meant getting back to what was working for Smith in April and May – are paying off. August was Smith’s best month of the season thus far. In six starts, he posted a 2.67 ERA, dropping his earned run average for the season from 4.26 to 3.81.

In his last start of the month, on Saturday against the Yankees, Smith tossed his sixth quality start of the season, going 6.1 innings and holding New York to a pair of solo home runs while striking out seven batters and walking only two.

That success against a very tough Yankee lineup came thanks to doing what he was best at in April and May: attacking with his fastball. Of the 97 pitches he threw, 65 of them were his heaters.

“Shane was outstanding tonight. He was in the zone,” White Sox manager Will Venable told reporters of Smith. “The fastball was the difference tonight. Secondary stuff was fine. But really aggressive with the fastball in the zone. Did a great job.”

It’s been another tough season on the south side of Chicago, but there are signs of improvement over the record-setting number of losses in 2024. Young players like Smith are giving Sox fans reason to feel more optimistic about the ballclub’s future, and although Luis Robert, Jr. is likely out for the season, the fact that he was not traded at the July 31 deadline seems to indicate that the front office plans to pick up his $20 million option for 2026 and keep building around the center fielder.

As for Smith, the 25-year-old is under team control through the 2030 season, and he is making the $760,000 rookie league minimum this season. He won’t reach his first year of arbitration until 2028, so the Sox have the opportunity to keep an inexpensive and talented pitcher in the organization for many years. Should Smith keep pitching at the level he has this season, it might be wise to lock him down to a long-term extension before arbitration hits, but the Sox front office has time to mull that decision.

Ultimately, Shane Smith has demonstrated in August the all-too-important ability to bounce back from struggles and adjust back as the league has adjusted to him. Given that he was acquired as a Rule 5 pick last winter, that makes Smith all the more valuable to the White Sox. And as he continues to grow and develop as a pitcher, he could be a centerpiece to their rotation for years to come.