Monday’s jewel from Shane Smith led to a glorious 7-0 win against the royals, and the White Sox will do it again tonight to do it again with left-wing Martín Pérez on the Heuvel. The South Siders raised 11 hits last night and Kansas City served their first shutout of the season, and it certainly helped that the pitching was also on point.
Pérez was solid in his first pair of starts this season before an elbow injury sent him to the IL in mid -April, and he has now made his third start since he hits the team at the team on 13 August. In his two August he started only one earned run (two in total) in 8 2/3 innings with nine strikeouts against two walks and looked really firmly in his 5 1/3 inch-starting run. Martín has an ERA of 2.51 over its 28 2/3 total innings with 27 strikeouts (a clip of 22.9%) and 13 walks (11% running speed), which amounts to a 1,151 whip. He could certainly lower his running speed, and although his sample size is quite small, the royals attack has the second worst running speed in MLB at 7.1%, with only the gloomy Colorado Rockies.
The good news for Pérez is that Kansas City 23rd stands in MLB for Team Ops (.700), although their attack is quite solid since the All-Star break, with a .771 Ops, only a few places lower than your Chicago White Sox. However, he will still have to do with Bobby Witt Jr. Slag Second, which is in 15th place in Ops in all baseball EN .504 hits the season. Maikel Garcia will hold down the lead -off place and leads the line -up of royals in stroke average and second in Ops only behind Witt.
For the royals, Righthander Michael Lorenzen will make his 20th start of the season. He has posted a 4.50 ER about his 108 innings next to a 1,343 whip. Lorenzen has disabled 94 batters, but he does not touch them at an aggressive pace and has a strikeout percentage of 20% in the season. As an alternative, its 6.9% running speed is actually quite solid, and it is the only place where his Statcast ranking shows value. The White Sox has hit much better since the All-Star break, so Lorzen may have to do with the rookies that flash their strength (we can only hope).
Chicago has the fifth best Ops in the second half (.783), are bound for the fourth most home runs (55) and the third most RBIs (184) in all of baseball. Mike Tauchman has now kept the lead -off place and he has stayed a hit trader this entire season, so there is no reason to repair what is not broken. Miguel Vargas stamped Doubles this year, with 30 in the season – 12 higher than the next batter. Colson Montgomery was initially set to beat third, but the team sent an updated line -up that had him a little further in the order. Montgomery has hit .541 since he comes from the minors, so really, I am good with wherever he hits.
The good guys will take the hill with the first throw at 6.40 pm CT in the hope of taking a series victory early in the week. You can coordinate at the usual places: on the radio on ESPN Chicago AM 1000, or on TV at CHSN. Let’s go sox!
#Game #thread #Royals #White #Sox