Chicago White Sox welcome in a very bad Oakland A’s team

The somewhat slumping Chicago White Sox, fresh off of a split in a two-game series with the Colorado Rockies in Denver, will play host to the Oakland Athletics for a three-game series in Chicago over the weekend.

The Athletics are coming off of a three-game sweep of the Houston Astros. The A’s are coming in hot and that’s not good for the White Sox.

Chicago has a bevy of issues they need to clear up. Poor hitting, poor fielding, and not-so-strong pitching have come to hurt them a lot. Facing a red-hot A’s team isn’t what the doctor ordered for this ailing club.

But maybe, with a little luck, the White Sox can get better against the A’s by beating them and continuing their slow slippery climb up the ladder in the AL Central.

The first game of the series will feature the struggling Lance Lynn against righty James Kaprielian. Lynn enters the game with an ERA of 6.43 with 41 strikeouts. His record coming in is 1-3. Kaprielian will come into the game with a record of 1-5, an ERA of 474, and 49 strikeouts.

The Chicago White Sox needs to win this series against the Oakland A’s.

Neither pitcher really stands out but Lynn might have a slight edge despite the higher ERA. Lynn wasn’t bad in his last outing and if he can continue to get better, the White Sox may be able to pull this first game out and gain some momentum.

I think that Lynn will be ready to win this one and the Sox bats will be hot following their frustrating 9th inning loss to the Rockies on Wednesday.

Saturday night’s game will see Johnny Cueto go up against right-hander Paul Blackburn. Cueto has been a steady pitcher all season and has come up with some impressive wins. He enters this game with a record of 4-4, an ERA of 2.89, and 58 strikeouts.

Blackburn’s record heading into Saturday’s game is 6-6 with a 4.35 ERA. His strike-out total is 82 which is not that bad.

Who has the advantage in this one? It’s a tie and neither pitcher has the advantage. It’s obvious that the team that makes the fewest mistakes will win this. In this game, it will be important to avoid baserunning or fielding mistakes. Every play is going to count.

The final game of the three-game set, which will take place Sunday afternoon, will see White Sox ace Dylan Cease go up against a pitcher that is yet to be determined.

Cease, who has been red hot this season, enters Sunday’s game with a record of 10-4, an ERA of 2.03, and a whopping 154 strikeouts. Cease is a world beater and one of the best on the mound in baseball.

This will be a low-scoring game because Cease is on the mound. That is assured. The Sox will need to crank up their bats and get things moving against whoever will be taking the mound for the A’s in this final game of the series.

Taking two out of three from the A’s will be a dream come true if the White Sox can pull it off. But they have some things going against them. For one, they are playing at home and they have not played that well there this season.

Another issue they have is injuries. Injuries to batters and the bullpen have taken their toll. There are also way too many mistakes. The White Sox are prone to making them and need to get their heads straight in order to win.

If they clean up a lot of the mistakes and fire up the bats, the White Sox will win a couple of games in this series. If they can’t, they will continue to fall behind and will watch their season slowly slip away.