The Debut of Mr. Youkilis – Lineups 6/25

No time to waste, Youk is in the lineup. Kevin Youkilis will make his clean Sox debut tonight against the Twins at Target Field. He’ll bat second, he’ll be wearing his #20 jersey. Jordan Danks will wear #7 for the remainder of his time on the team, however long that may be. I suppose he was a big Jerry Owens fan.

On the mound for the White Sox is Jake “Complete Game Loss” Peavy looking to continue his trend of quality performances and end the trend that hands him the losses in those. Unfortunately for him he only has control over the former. Jake, of course, went 9 innings and allowed 1 earned run in his last start.

Things haven’t been going too well for Francisco Liriano, tonight’s Twins starter. He spent some time in the bullpen after getting lit up for 5 runs in each of his first 4 starts in 2012, the shortest of which lasted just over 2 innings. He’s been back in the rotation for a few turns now and in his last start he had his best go yet, 6.2 innings with just one run allowed, albeit against the Pirates. We’ve learned some lessons about underestimating ol’ Francisco, though, haven’t we?

Tonight’s Lineup:

1.De Aza – CF
2.Kevin Youkilis – 3B
3.Adam Dunn – DH
4.Konerko – 1B
5.Rios – RF
6.AJ – C
7.Dayan – LF
8.Alexei – SS
9.Gordo – 2B

It goes without saying that all eyes are on Youkilis. The bar is set low and he doesn’t have to do much to be an improvement at the plate over everybody else that’s played third for the Sox. To really win over the fan base, he’ll have to add a bit more to that .220 average though. Not all today, I reckon fans will give him a few games to get there.