Gavin Sheets excited to return to Chicago as a winner with the Padres

NEW YORK — Gavin Sheets could be celebrating this weekend in a familiar spot.

It is a bit of serendipity, but it is also precisely what Sheets expected.

“Coming back there and putting together a good season and playing in a pennant chase,” he said, “it definitely feels sweet to come back there.”

There is Chicago and Rate Field, home of the White Sox, who non-tendered Sheets in November after he spent his first four seasons in the big leagues with the team that drafted him.

The Padres play three games at Rate Field this weekend with a chance to clinch a playoff berth. It could happen as soon as Saturday.

Sheets has been a big part of why the Padres have been so successful this season. And the team doing so well is a big component in Sheets’ success.

“I look at ‘21 and ‘22, and they were pretty good years,” Sheets said. “Things changed there. And so to get back to playing winning baseball, I think putting winning as the No. 1 thing and being on a team that top to bottom does things the right way, you want to be a piece of that and contribute to that. You’re held to a high standard here. There’s just a lot of differences from the last two years of the baseball that I was playing — individually and as a team. So to get back here and get that refreshing, it has been nice.”

Sheets returns to Chicago nearing the end of a renaissance year, batting .259 with a .772 OPS. He has set career bests in home runs (19), doubles (28), RBIs (67), hits (118) and plate appearances (505), among other categories. He began the season as an extra outfielder and infielder and part-time designated hitter. He worked his way into the starting lineup in left field, rode the bench again for a couple of weeks and worked his way back to being a regular. He will go into Friday’s game having started 27 of the Padres’ past 28 games. The last 13 of those have been as the DH.

Sheets’ time in Chicago came to an end after two seasons in which he hit .220 with a .635 OPS. Those numbers were down drastically from .244 and .743 over his first two seasons, the first of which saw the White Sox win the American League Central and the second of which ended with them in second place.

The White Sox were 120 games below .500 over the past two seasons.

Sheets talked since joining the Padres at the start of spring training on a minor-league deal about having made it a priority to sign with a contender. He never publicly spoke ill of the White Sox, but he acknowledged without hesitation how brutal it was to endure the team’s historically bad 121-loss season in 2024.

Sheets spent the winter remodeling his swing and his approach at the plate, but he also seemed to believe being a role player on a winner would help him almost as much.

“I knew right away, because I knew what ‘21 and ‘22 (were) like,” he said Thursday. “I had some successes those years, so I didn’t think that my time in the big leagues was done. I didn’t think that I was the player I was the last two years. I think the most frustrating thing about my time at Chicago was just the way things turned.

“That was why it was so important to get to a winning team and play meaningful baseball, because I felt like I could be a piece of that.  I know how to play the game. I know how to play winning baseball. And I just felt like if I could put that ahead of individual statistics, that my game would get back to what it should be.”

Sheets still has a number of friends on the White Sox and said Thursday he was looking forward to the visit.

“That place was home for five years,” he said. “So I’m excited to get back and see some of the guys.”

And by the end of the weekend, he might have made a cherished new memory there.