Crosstown Classic: Round 2 – Lineups 6/18

I feel like I have to be careful what I say entering any game that the Sox should be expected to win now. Entering June, the schedule looked pretty cushy and included a large amount interleague games. Historically, the White Sox have fared pretty good in interleague play. Despite the retention of first place in the division, the wins haven’t come as easily as one might think, when they come at all. Blame Gavin Floyd, blame Humber, blame the bullpen or just blame everybody’s bats taking naps on the same day. Fact is, the 1.5 game lead should be much larger than that. So, here we are, a 3 game series with the team that has the worst record in all of baseball. With Ryan Dempster having hit the DL today, the Sox face the Cubs best active pitcher to start the series, and they are countering with a guy that hasn’t made a start all year.

That said, this is a series that Sox should be able to take without much issue. Home hasn’t been terribly kind for the Southsiders, but it’s as good a time as any to turn that around. Stewart is 3-8 in his starts with the Sox, all coming in 2011 and all 3 of those wins were against the Twins, oddly enough. This isn’t the Minnesota, but the 2011 Twins resembled the 2012 Cubs in regards to their utter hopelessness as a team. If he’s a garbage starter, so be it, it’s a good lineup to face if that’s your game.

Tonight’s Lineup:

1.De Aza – CF
2.Gordo – 2B
3.Big Donkey – DH
4.Paulie – 1B
5.Rios – RF
6.AJ – C
7.Dayan – LF
8.Alexei – SS
9.Hudson – 3B

Adam Dunn has 23 homeruns and the Cubs have 22 wins. He’s looking to keep ahead of the game in that regard and Matt Garza has been known to serve up a long ball or two. If we’re being realistic, we’re going to need quite a few runs to back Stewart’s outing and the Cubs bullpen might make it easy, but first they have to get past Garza.