CHICAGO – Oscar Colás broke camp from Spring Training with the White Sox as their hope to fill the team’s long-standing void in right field, not to mention adding left-handed power to a right-handed-heavy lineup.

But the 24-year-old, who turns 25 on Sept. 17, won’t finish the season as part of the White Sox Major League roster after being optioned to Triple-A Charlotte prior to Monday’s postponed game against the Royals. White Sox manager Pedro Grifol described Colás as an impactful player with impressive tools, but fundamentally, he still needs a great deal of work.

“He's got to go down there and take care of those fundamentals,” Grifol said. “We talked a lot here about those fundamentals. We've worked a lot, we'll continue to work with him. However, we thought it was just a good time for him to go down there and just attack those things on the Minor League side.

“I talked about this over and over again, and [general manager] Chris [Getz] and I are aligned on this vision: We want to play a fundamental style of baseball. We want to eliminate mistakes, and details are extremely important to us. That's what we're going to be looking for moving forward.”

Colás slashed .216/.257/.314 with five home runs, nine doubles and 19 RBIs over 263 plate appearances, numbers well below what the organization expected. It was just last year when Colás posted a .314/.371/.524 slash line across three Minor League stops with 23 homers, 24 doubles and 79 RBIs.

It was the on-field occurrences not necessarily measured by statistics, whether it be throwing to the wrong base, overshooting the cutoff man or getting poor secondary leads on the basepaths, leading to his second trip to Charlotte. Colás also was optioned on May 2 and recalled on July 4.

“He’s made some mistakes, not that we were too surprised when those mistakes have happened,” said Getz during an interview session in Detroit. “It's a matter of minimizing those. You want players to go out there and play freely and be the athletes they are, but within the approach of winning a baseball game and making good decisions on the field. There have been moments that perhaps have gotten a little too big for him.”

“We sent him down, he made some of those adjustments in Triple-A, came back up here – and sometimes you could see adjustments, sometimes you couldn’t,” Grifol said. “Some of the mistakes kept recurring. This has nothing to do with tools. This is sharpening his toolbox to be able to come up here and play consistent baseball, detailed baseball, fundamentally sound baseball, and be a part of this moving forward.”

The White Sox basically were in a difficult spot, in terms of postseason contention, after a 7-21 start to the season, but they were officially eliminated on Sunday. Grifol still pointed to being able to try more things with Colás and not compromising a big league game as a reason for the trip to Charlotte at this point.

“That’s the way it’s always been,” Grifol said. “Even though we’re 30 under and we’re officially eliminated, we’re still trying to win Major League games. Sometimes the environment up here creates a level of anxiety that doesn’t allow the player to maximize his capabilities and potential.

“When you send him down, it kind of frees him up a little bit, it lets him do more things in a more controlled environment. At this time, we made this decision so he can go down there and finish the season, hopefully, on a strong note. We’ll talk to him again and give him a plan for the offseason.”

Part of that plan is accepting an assignment to winter ball, which Grifol believes is extremely important to get Colás ready to compete for the ‘24 right field job in Spring Training. Grifol described Colás as disappointed but OK when receiving the news.

“I think he understood the reasons why,” Grifol said. “He has a couple options left. I’n not saying we’re going to exercise both those options, I’m just saying this organization is committed to making him the impactful player he can be. He has the tools.

“We’re not in a hurry. He probably is, but we’re not. We all thought in Spring Training he could impact us, but you quickly find out the speed of this game affects some guys and some it doesn’t. The most important thing for him is to slow the game down.”