CHICAGO -- Evan Marshall admitted to feeling a little shocked by his less-than-perfect start from the White Sox bullpen for the 2021 season.

The 31-year-old right-hander, who has a 3.13 ERA with the White Sox over 96 career games, was even more stunned considering his 13 strikeouts, one walk and three hits allowed over eight innings during Cactus League action in Arizona.

Marshall described it as winning the “Cy Young of the Cactus League basically, which could probably be a curse, I guess.”

“It felt like I was doing so good in camp that I started trying to expand my repertoire,” Marshall added. “That caused me to deteriorate in the things I’m actually really good at.”

In 18 2/3 innings and 18 games during the regular season, Marshall has posted a 5.79 ERA. He has made adjustments toward getting back in sync, with his work producing one run allowed and five strikeouts over his last 5 1/3 innings.

“You look at old film and things I was doing, just going back to spring, and I just found that I was getting rotational and you saw my misses were arm side and glove side, not really up and down over the strike zone,” Marshall said. “When you get rotational, the margin for error is a lot smaller. The window for a good release point is a lot smaller.

“I kind of kicked my back leg into overdrive and got some direction toward the plate. My release point has since followed.”

His rough start was an uncomfortable and incredibly frustrating feeling for Marshall, because he didn’t exactly know the problem. That comfort level on the mound has since increased.

“There was one stretch where I walked four of five guys I faced, and I’m not a walks guy. ... Mentally, you go to a pretty dark place pretty quickly when that’s happening,” Marshall said. “It took [pitching coach Ethan] Katz and the coaching staff to be like, ‘We’ll fix this. Nobody has lost confidence in you. We’re going to get this right. We need the version of Evan Marshall that we’ve had.’

“I’m doing good. I put in a lot of work to try to right the ship. Starting to see some better results, especially in my first inning of work. The multiple ups just in general for a late reliever those kinds of things go really well when you are dialed in. When you are searching for it, those things are a little bit tougher. In general, we’ve got it trending in the right direction.”

Anderson giveaway

White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson returned to his familiar leadoff spot in time for the White Sox to give away his bat flip bobblehead on both Friday and Saturday.

“Everybody remembers that moment. So I’m excited. Hopefully, the weather goes great,” Anderson said. “It was supposed to come out last year, and we all know what happened there.

“Hopefully, we can finally get them to the people, and everyone is excited. It’s pretty cool. I have one, and they are pretty dope. It turned out real great. I’m very pleased with it. It shows exactly what I’m doing and what I did. I’m definitely happy with it.”

Engel on the right track

Outfielder Adam Engel is focused on getting baseball ready and getting his timing down at the plate during his injury rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Charlotte to test a right hamstring strain. Engel entered Friday 3-for-8 with one home run and one stolen base.

“Every at-bat, I'm getting a little bit closer to where I feel very, very competitive,” said Engel on a Zoom from Norfolk. “If I were to get the call tonight, ‘Hey, you're going back to Chicago,’ I think I'd be ready to contribute.

“I'm not in midseason form yet by any means, offensively, but I feel like I'm in a pretty good spot. Things are going well on that end.”

Third to first

• Anderson was bothered by a sore left thumb, costing him two straight starts, while giving him a little trouble gripping the bat.

“Those two days definitely helped me,” Anderson said. “I feel like I’m back in the spot where I need to be.”

• José Abreu leads the Majors with 100 RBIs since the start of 2020 and 223 RBIs since the start of 2019. Abreu has recorded 150 RBIs over his last 162 games since July 30, 2019.

They Said It
“I don’t think there’s any chance, no. One thing, he’s been out of the uniform with that bereavement. No, that one I’m sure about.” -- Manager Tony La Russa ruling out Michael Kopech as a starter for Monday’s doubleheader in Cleveland.