Picking Up the Split – Lineups 7/19

As ugly as last night’s final score might have been, it constitutes just the one loss. Sometimes it’s necessary to say that aloud after such a thumping. In fact, with a win tonight, the White Sox walk out of Boston with a split. Beat up as the Red Sox are (both Sox are quite beat up, actually), they are a quality baseball team and any time you stroll into the home park of a quality team and pull a split you can feel confident that you are doing your job.

The man in charge of keeping the Red Sox in check while the Pale Hose figure out how to get their bats working properly is Jose Quintana. Quintana represents the exact opposite side of the spectrum from Pedro Hernandez as far as giving a young, unproven pitcher a shot in the bigs. While Hernandez got pounded in one start, Quintana has only had 2 starts out of 11 that didn’t have every White Sox fan shaking their head in disbelief at their blind fortune.

The Red Sox send Clay Buchholz to the mound. Coming off of a couple of solid years, Buchholz is fitting right in with the Red Sox and their underachieving rotation. His peripherals all match up with years past but the ERA has ballooned to 5.54 from mid 3s and low 2s in years previous.

Tonight’s Lineup:

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

You read correctly, no Kevin Youkilis for this one, at least not to start. Youk has been given the evening off while he is experiencing hamstring tightness, but will likely be available to pinch hit if needed. This poses a problem as Youkilis has been the catalyst for the White Sox for pretty much the entire series. Hopefully the rest of the team can step up, get on base, and knock in some runs of their own.

A Detroit win in Anaheim this afternoon means that should Chicago fail to gain a victory in this contest, the Tigers will be just a game and a half behind the Sox going into a weekend series at Comerica. Breathing room, please. Breathing room.