Crazy eights for Barons' Jimenez

It appears the only player good enough to stop Eloy Jiménez is Eloy Jimenez. Unfortunately for Southern League pitchers, that probably won't be a reliable option.
The top White Sox prospect homered and recorded his eighth straight multi-hit game to lead Double-A Birmingham past Pensacola, 5-2, on Tuesday night at Regions Field. Since beginning the year in an 0-for-10 funk, Jimenez is batting .382 with seven homers and 20 RBIs during a 12-game hitting streak.

The reigning Southern League Offensive Player of the Week is hitting .333 and his seven homers rank second in the circuit, one behind teammate and No. 21 White Sox prospect Seby Zavala, despite playing in nine fewer games. Jimenez missed the first two weeks of the season with a mild strain in his left pectoral muscle suffered during Spring Training.
The 21-year-old opened the scoring with a solo shot to right-center field in the first, which briefly put him into a tie with Zavala for the league lead. However, his teammate followed the blast with one of his own to reclaim the top spot with his eighth roundtripper of the year and second in as many games. Jimenez singled to center in the third and grounded out in each of his final two at-bats. 
MLB.com's No. 4 overall prospect is 17-for-36 (.472) during his eight-game multi-hit spree with three homers and seven RBIs.
Gameday box score
"That dude is unreal. He is the best hitter I have ever seen," teammate and No. 14 White Sox prospect Spencer Adams told AL.com. "Some of us are just wondering why he is not in the big leagues."
Jimenez may not be ready for the Windy City just yet, but he's been a quick study at each stop of his Minor League career. The native of the Dominican Republic broke out with a .329/.369/.532 slash line and 57 extra-bae hits in 112 games with Class A South Bend in 2016. Traded from the Cubs to the White Sox midway through last season, he put together another strong campaign. He batted .312/.379/.568 with a career-high 19 homers for four teams across two levels, despite missing the first five weeks of the season. 
"He's an electric player. He's one of the best hitters I've ever seen at this level at that age," Birmingham hitting coach Cole Armstrong told MiLB.com last month. "To be honest, just to see what he was doing in his work and where his focus was every day in his preparation, it wasn't a matter of hoping for if it's going to come -- it's just when it's going to come. It's a matter of time."

Ryan Brett drove in three runs in support of Adams (2-3), who snapped a personal three-game losing streak. The Birmingham starter allowed two runs on four hits and a walk with three strikeouts over six innings. Brad Goldberg and 16th-ranked White Sox prospect Ian Hamilton combined to yield one hit over three scoreless frames.
Reds No. 12 prospectAristides Aquino had two hits, including a solo homer, for Pensacola. Blue Wahoos starter Keury Mella (3-1) allowed a season-high five runs on seven hits and two walks with two strikeouts in six innings. The 20th-ranked Reds prospect had given up three earned runs in his first six starts.