Grant Taylor flexing his muscle for a flexible White Sox bullpen

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s a “day-to-day operation” down the home stretch for White Sox manager Will Venable and his beleaguered pitching staff.

Down a pair of starters and dealing with inconsistency from the much of the rotation, Venable could barely sketch out his plan on the mound for Sunday’s series finale in Minneapolis until after Saturday’s 3-2 victory over the Twins .

The late-summer pitching triage situation has underscored the value of powerhouse reliever Grant Taylor, who turned in his longest outing of the season Friday when the Sox needed it most in a divisional showdown.

“He's just pounding the zone,” said Venable, who called in the second-year right hander in the sixth inning to escape a one-out, two-on jam before sailing through two more innings on a total of 27 pitches with three punchouts.

“That's a big ask, but he's just so efficient,” Venable said. “It obviously saved the day for us there.”

Not that anyone in the organization is all that worried who’s in line for saves. The Sox deployed Taylor as an opener four times over the first month of the season but have reserved his 98 mph fastball and knee-buckling curve for high-leverage situations against opposing teams’ best hitters anytime from the sixth inning on.

Taylor, who lowered his ERA to 2.03 over 52 outings with 92 strikeouts in 71 innings, had pushed for a rotation spot before the season, but he’s enjoying his ride as Venable’s designated shutdown man.

“The buildup has been pretty solid,” said Taylor, a 2023 second-round draft pick out of LSU. “Started the year with a lot of ones, mixed in some twos for a while. So the third up, I might be a little more tired the next day, but it’s just kind of part of the deal now.

“We’re in a tight game, and I’m called upon and I’m ready for it,” he said.

That’s the attitude across a relief corps that has hit some speed bumps in the second half but stood tall behind Taylor, a resurgent Jordan Hicks (who will open Sunday), a sturdy Sean Newcomb (who covered three scoreless innings Saturday) and a stunning Bryan Hudson (who notched his second save in as many games to seal their latest win).

Bryan Hudson pitches in the ninth inning against the Twins on Saturday.

Ellen Schmidt/AP Photos

“As a bullpen, I think it's just important that we all stay united and continue to have each other's backs,” Hudson said. “We're a pretty tight-knit group, and we just know to be ready all year, at any given point.

“There's not really any set roles. There's not really a specific time when you're going to come in, so it's just kind of judging how the game's going and being ready to go, especially this time of year."

That goes for other arms on a staff with fluid roles across the board, including Erick Fedde, who gave the Sox their first start of at least five innings in eight days on Saturday, after a month of bouncing around various roles out of the pen.

Venable has threaded the needle of playing untraditional matchups that might miff pitchers in a clubhouse with bigger egos. Some starters haven’t been shy about their displeasure with the use of openers, but it never became a distraction.

“There are always [situations] in which you use players that they can potentially be unhappy about,” Venable said. “You have to put energy into that to make sure that everyone's in a good spot. When you have guys like Fedde that are open to that and also veterans and leaders on the club, it just really allows us to do a lot of different things.

“It also kind of mitigates the chatter behind the scenes, which can happen when guys aren't always into how they're being used,” Venable added. “Having good guys that understand that we all just want to win, and that could look different on a day-to-day basis, is just kind of where it starts. And then when you have some success with it, I'm sure that helps create buy-in too.”