A Healthy Philip Humber Returns For Sox on Sox Action – Lineups 7/17

A healthy, revived and rested Philip Humber joins the team in Boston to do his thing. His thing, hopefully, will be disposing of Red Sox batters at will. The White Sox could use the boost that a solid Humber start could provide, both in keeping distance from Detroit, and in confidence with the starting pitching situation that has seen healthier days.

For Boston, Jon Lester is a very good pitcher. He just hasn’t exactly been pitching like it. His ERA this year is heading towards being the highest he’s turned in since becoming a regular starter. Curiously, he doesn’t have many games in 2012 where he’s been beat up, but he doesn’t have the dominant starts that can keep an ERA anchored either. His strikeout rate is in the decline, but as we learned last night, a starter needn’t strike out every batter he faces to be effective.

Tonight’s Lineup:

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

Hopefully Youkilis didn’t limit his “take a look at me now” performance to just one day, and is going to be gracing the lineup with 3 hit games every game of the series. It will take more than just Youk, which is another thing that we learned last night. Fenway is a hitters ballpark, no reason these guys shouldn’t start hitting.