CHICAGO -- There will be a time, two or three years from now, when Michael Kopech and Dane Dunning are in Chicago as mainstays of the White Sox starting rotation.

But for this week, they are just visiting as they continue their recoveries from Tommy John surgery. The two actually are working alongside each other in their recovery program at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Ariz.

“It's nice having him around because he's further along than I am, and he's already been through everything that I've been through,” Dunning, Chicago's No. 6 prospect per MLB Pipeline, said prior to Friday’s game. “He's a good reference to talk to if something happens, or if I feel something weird, I can talk to him and be like, 'Hey, what did you do for this?' He usually has a pretty solid answer for me.”

“I’ve talked to plenty of guys,” said Kopech, the club's No. 2 prospect and No. 17 in baseball. “Rooming with [Lucas] Giolito this offseason, he helped me when I was going through that part of the process. The fact there are a few guys going through it, yeah, it seems like it [stinks], but we are able to help each other and make the process a lot easier.”

Dunning is six weeks out from surgery, so it’s going to be a couple of months before he gets cleared to throw. Kopech, who had surgery last September, is at 42 percent of his recovery, feeling good and still doing his long-toss program. He’s out to 120 feet, and he threw his first flat-ground session on Thursday in Chicago.

Bullpen sessions will eventually be the next stage, but Kopech is not sure when. On Friday, he had a chance to watch Chris Sale, the All-Star who came to Boston in exchange for a four-player return that included Kopech and White Sox third baseman Yoan Moncada.

When asked about being intertwined with Sale as the first trade of the rebuild, Kopech smiled and asked, “Who is that?” But he went on to talk about Sale’s legacy vs. building his own.

“Obviously he had a heck of a year last year, and he’s a heck of a pitcher,” Kopech said. “He’s one of the faces of baseball, so to even still be included in that is really cool.

“Yo Yo [Moncada] and myself probably would rather almost put that behind us, but not in a negative connotation. Just in the fact we want to have our own careers and build a name for ourselves. It’s not a bad thing by any means. Chris Sale is Chris Sale. I’m excited to see him pitch tonight.

“We want to be able to help this team win a championship someday, and hopefully someday soon,” Kopech said. “We are not really trying to prove anyone right or wrong or anything like that. It’s just now, this is the team. This is who we are.”

Being part of the big league clubhouse, even for a week's break, was a nice change of pace for the rehabbing hurlers.

“This is exciting, seeing all this and being here with all the players,” Dunning said. “I got to meet and play with a lot of these guys in Spring Training last year, and being here is where I want to be in the future. Hopefully when I come back, I can make my push toward here.”

“Just because I’m not physically a part of it right now doesn’t mean I’m not a part of this team,” Kopech said. “I’m just trying to embrace what everybody else is doing and get excited for next year.”