Baseball is back! After a short break thanks to the All-Star break, the Chicago White Sox will be back to play some baseball. To start the second half of the season, they will be taking on the Cleveland Guardians.
The three-day/four-game set will take place at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago and will feature a lot of action, especially with that doubleheader thrown in there.
The White Sox ended on a hot streak prior to the All-Star game. The Guardians are just as hot so this showdown looks like it will be a good one.
If the Sox can win a majority of the games in this series, they will surpass the Guardians for second place in the division and draw ever closer to the Minnesota Twins for the lead in the AL Central.
The second half of the season will be great for the Sox! It’s their time now. Let’s take a look at the pitching matchups for each game in the White Sox/Guardians series:
The Chicago White Sox needs to be great in the 2nd half to salvage the season.
Friday night will see Lucas Giolito take the mound for the Sox while the Guardians put Cal Quantrill up against him. Giolito, who had been struggling a little bit in the first half of the season, has been performing better and gives the Sox a great chance to win.
Giolito comes in with a record of 6-5 and an ERA of 4.69. His counterpart enters the game with a record of 6-5 and has an ERA of 3.75.
It would appear that Quantrill might have the advantage but Giolito has been pitching better lately. The Sox can win this one behind the strong performance of Giolito and some hot bats that have been waiting to do some damage since before the All-Star break.
The second matchup of the series, which will be the first one of a doubleheader, will put Johnny Cueto against Triston McKenzie.
Cueto has been amazing this year for the White Sox as he has been able to pitch some fine games for them. Cueto comes into Saturday afternoon’s game with a record of 4-4 and an ERA of 2.80. He’s been performing very well lately and hopefully, that continues on Saturday.
McKenzie enters Saturday afternoon’s game with a record of 7-6 and a 3.20 ERA. He has been solid for the Guardians while Cueto’s only real struggle has been a lack of offense.
If the offense can get going, the White Sox will win this game handily. They just need those bats to catch fire and they will call this a victory.
The second game of the doubleheader on Saturday will have Lance Lynn take his 1-3 record, along with his whopping 7.50 ERA up against a pitcher yet to be determined. Lynn has struggled mightily over the last few games and if he struggles on this night the Sox are going to lose.
Consider this the weak point in their four-game series and most likely the game that they are going to lose. Unless Lynn can get straightened out, the White Sox are going to struggle and drop this one.
The fourth and final game of the weekend will take place Sunday afternoon. We will see Dylan Cease, this year’s White Sox ace on the mound, take on Guardians ace, Shane Bieber.
Cease, who was obviously an All-Star slight, enters this game with a record of 9-4 and an ERA of 2.15. Bieber comes into the last game of the series with a record of 4-5 and an ERA of 3.24.
Cease is magical on the mound and is the clear favorite in this pitching matchup. Cease will be unstoppable but once again, hot bats equal a win in this game.
Look for the White Sox to grab three of four games in this one for a series win. Hopefully, they will be able to carry over some of the momenta that they had entering the All-Star break and keep it going against the Guardians.
It promises to be a good series and a fun one that should see the Sox creep up in the AL Central standings.