Gavin Tries for 2 Starts in a Row – Lineups 6/26

In his most recent outing Gavin Floyd went 6.1 innings without giving up a run. He’s still got some work to do. Floyd doesn’t have a lot of goodwill with myself or any Sox fans right now. Prior to his outing against the Cubs, 6 straight clunkers were unleashed in which he gave up an average of over 5 runs per game. It’s going to take more than one start against one of the weaker offenses in the league for fans to get behind Floyd with any confidence. In his last start against the Twins Floyd didn’t make it out of the 4th inning and he gave up 9 runs, so it would be a very difficult task to be any worse than that.

Everybody has calmed about the arrival of Kevin Youkilis by now, I hope. His 1-4 last night was un-extraordinary, yet raises the collective third base average for the Pale Hose. Youk and Dunn back to back in the lineup help the White Sox to do something they’ve had trouble with all year, which is getting opposing pitchers to work. All year the Sox have been less than selective as a team, allowing starters to go pretty deep into games. Tonight we will hope that the Aussie, Liam Hendriks suffers from a bit of extra work and gets the early exit. Hendriks has made 6 starts this season and is yet to earn a win. Don’t help him out.

Tonight’s Lineup:

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

I’d prefer not to spend any time listening to folks harp about how the Sox can’t beat the Twins, can’t win in Minneapolis or anything of the sort. So it would be a great help to me if the Sox would just go ahead and win tonight. Thanks.

*AJ Pierzynski is replaced in the lineup by Tyler Flowers. No reason given as yet for the switch.