Top White Sox stories of 2018: Matt Davidson's turn as the South Side Shohei Ohtani

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As the new year approaches, we're counting down the top White Sox stories from 2018.

Shohei Ohtani was expected to be the talk of Major League Baseball during the 2018 season, the Japanese import who was going to pitch and hit for the Los Angeles Angels.

Little did the baseball world know when the season began that the White Sox would have their own two-way sensation.

Matt Davidson started the season with a relatively expected bang, hitting three of the White Sox six home runs in their Opening Day win in Kansas City. After smashing 27 bombs in 2017, another power surge didn't come as much of a surprise — though it was an early highlight in what was anticipated to be the toughest season of the team's ongoing rebuilding project.

What did come as a surprise was what happened beginning in late June, when Davidson entered a game against the Texas Rangers as a pitcher.

Position players pitching was kind of all the rage in 2018, so Davidson's trip to the mound didn't carry the same kind of novelty it might have in seasons past. But then he retired all three batters he faced, striking one of them out. He turned in another 1-2-3 inning of relief work a month later against the Toronto Blue Jays, and then it became clear this wasn't just another example of a position player coming in for some bullpen-saving mop-up duty.

Davidson was serious about doing this on a more regular basis. He regaled reporters with his childhood dreams of being a big league pitcher. He saw an opportunity to be a more valuable commodity: a slugger who could help out his team in another way as managers look for more and more ways to rest their taxed bullpen arms.

“To be honest, I would love to maybe explore that idea,” Davidson said after his second appearance of the season July 27. “Pitching was a dream. As a young kid, everybody wants to hit that walk off homer, right? I was the guy striking that guy out. That’s how I first loved the game. My favorite player was Randy Johnson and doing that.

“So, it’s something I would be interested in. I don’t know if the game would necessarily allow that or something like that. It’s something that is really close to my heart is pitching.”

Davidson got a third inning in early August, facing the New York Yankees. And once more, he shut down the opposition, retiring three of the five batters he faced — including a strikeout of 2017 NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton.

Davidson continued to be very serious about wanting to take on a bigger pitching role, though he'll have to do that elsewhere after the White Sox non-tendered him this offseason.

While he might not have reached the level of Ohtani — who won the AL Rookie of the Year Award for his stellar work in both facets — and he might not be able to edge out the host of actual major league relief pitchers out there, team's always find value in versatility and the ability to do multiple things.

Maybe after being one of the highlights of the White Sox season in 2018, he could bring this kind of stuff to a major league mound in 2019.

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