The White Sox continue their nine game homestand on Monday when the Kansas City Royals come to town for a 3 game series. The Sox are coming off an intense and close series with the Angels where they took two out of three thanks to some late inning heroics from Alex Rios and AJ Pierzynski.
The Royals come into town after losing two out of three to the Texas Rangers at home. The two teams have played six games this season with each team winning three of them.
Of note: John Danks underwent surgery Monday and should be ready for ST ’13. Credit: Getty Images
Pitching Matchups
Monday’s pitching matchup features the return of Chris Sale (12-3, 2.61 ERA) to the White Sox rotation. Sale was skipped in the rotation last time around and was given an extended 10 days off in between starts. Opposing Sale will be Luis Mendoza (5-7, 4.32 ERA), who has made two starts against the White Sox this season and posted a 1-1 record with a 2.08 ERA. He has been the Royals most consistent pitcher this season and hasn’t given up more than 4 earned runs in a start since April 15th. He does not over power hitters (58 K’s in 100 IP) and he will give up some hits (106 in 100 IP). His WHIP for the season is at 1.470 so he does allow base-runners but he has induced 15 double plays this year, so that helps him out of some jams. Current White Sox hitters are hitting just .229 combined against Mendoza with only 2 home runs in 95 plate appearances.
As for Sale, he has faced the Royals twice this year as well and is 1-1 with a 2.77 ERA. His last start against the Royals in Kansas City Sale gave up 1 run in 8 innings, scattering 10 hits and striking out 4 without walking anyone. In his loss back in May he threw 103 pitches but lasted just 5 innings, giving up 3 runs. The White Sox and Sale are hoping that the extended rest will get Chris back to where he was for most of the season. His last two starts he gave up 10 runs in 13.1 innings and his fastball velocity was down. Several Royals have had success off of Sale, with Alex Gordon, Billy Butler and Alcides Escobar all hitting .300 or better with at least 10 at bats.
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Game 2 on Tuesday will feature Jake Peavy (9-7, 3.04 ERA) vs. Sox nemesis Bruce “Cy” Chen (7-9, 5.66 ERA). For reasons beyond my comprehension the White Sox have had trouble against the well-traveled, Panamanian left hander. Last season he went 3-1 against the Sox with a 1.90 ERA in 5 starts. This season the Sox have faced Chen just once and roughed him up for 6 runs in 4.2 innings including 3 home runs. There is no reason the Sox cannot get to Chen again this time around. He has given up 20 home runs already this season and if the Sox hit 3 of them in Kansas City, they should be able to hit at least that many at US Cellular. AJ (.433), Youkilis (.333) and Dunn (.385) have had the most success lifetime off Bruce Chen along with Viciedo who is 6-10 with a home run.
Hawk has nicknamed Bruce “Cy” Chen against the Sox. Credit: Getty Images
Peavy has faced the Royals once this season and struggled mightily. He gave up 6 runs on 12 hits in 7 innings in a start back on July 14th. The big blows were a pair of home runs given up to Alcides Escobar. Peavy’s last two starts have been very good picking up a pair of wins against the Twins and allowing just 1 run in each start. Several Royals players have had success against Peavy including Billy Butler who is 9-22(.409) with 3 home runs and Jeff Francoeur who is 10-24 (.417). The afore mentioned Escobar is hitting .308 with a pair of homers off Jake.
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The finale on Wednesday will be Jose Quintana (4-1. 2.80 ERA) against Jeremy Guthrie (3-12, 6.56 ERA). Guthrie will be making his 4th start for Kansas City after coming over in a trade with the Colorado Rockies. Since returning to the American League Guthrie as struggled going 0-3 with a 7.71 ERA and opponents are hitting .323 against him. He has not faced the Sox this year but has in the past when he pitched for Baltimore and Cleveland. Lifetime against the Sox Guthrie is 3-5 with a 4.57 ERA in 12 games. Alex Rios (.316) and AJ (.320) have the highest career batting averages against Guthrie while Konerko and Youkilis have each hit 3 homers off of him.
Quintana will make his return to the Sox rotation as well in this series, getting an extended break since his last start on July 30th. After getting off to a great start Quintana has struggled in 3 of his last 4 starts. One of those starts was his lone game against the Royals back on July 13th when he gave up 5 runs in 5 innings in a no decision in Kansas City. He was also tagged for 2 home runs in that start after having only give up 3 all season up until then. Like Sale the Sox are hoping the extra rest will help Quintana get back to form.
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Keys to the Series
Chicks Dig the Long Ball
The White Sox have been crushing the ball into the seats at US Cellular Field lately. In their last six games at The Cell the Sox have hit 16 home runs, an average of 2.67 per game.
AJ Pierzynski has tied the White Sox all time record with a homer in 5 straight games, including the pinch hit game winner on Sunday. Youkilis hit 3 homers in the Angels series as well and now has 7 homers in 15 games at US Cellular this year. Two of the pitchers the Sox will face in the series, Guthrie and Chen, are among the league leaders in home runs allowed this year.
US Cellular Field has certainly been more kind to “Youk” than Fenway Park was. Credit: Getty Images
While in the past I have thought that the Sox tried too hard to go deep at home, I think they have figured it out and are just trying to make good contact and being rewarded by the friendly dimensions at the Cell.
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Keep Cooking at Home
US Cellular is finally starting to look like a home field advantage. After getting off to a dismal start at home this season the Sox have turned things around. The Sox have won their last five series at home and have won 12 of the last 15 games at the Cell. Contrary to what some Chicago publications will say it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the fans. In the six home games since the All Star break the Sox have drawn almost 200,000 fans to see the games, an average of 32,599 per game. The only game the Sox didn’t draw at least 30,000 was on Saturday when the weather likely scared off some fans and they still had 28,571 at the ball park.
The fans have been loud and into the games from the start and in my opinion have really given the White Sox a boost. Hopefully the fans will continue to turn out for the rest of the homestand to support the first place Sox.
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C’mon … it’s the Royals!
For whatever reason the Royals always seem to give the White Sox trouble. I know there are a number of players that come to mind over the years that have played the role of ‘Sox Killer’ while wearing a Royals uniform. Since the start of the 2009 season the White Sox have gone 29-31(.483 winning percentage) against the Royals and have only won the season series once, in 2010 when they went 10-8. Over that same amount of time the Royals as a team had a winning percentage of .418 and lost more than 90 games each season, a feat they will likely accomplish again this year. Basically what this means is that the Sox are playing below .500 against a team that plays barely above .400 baseball. The Sox have to take care of business against bad teams. They have done it so far with Minnesota, now they need to do it with Kansas City.
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Outlook
I am going to keep it plain and simple. The Sox are throwing their two best pitchers in the series and the other pitcher has a sub 3.00 ERA. They are at home against a team that is 17 games below .500. This is a series the Sox better win. But hey, it’s the Royals, so who really knows. Let’s just hope they don’t bring Joe Randa out of retirement.
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Posted by GSB! Contributor, Matt Hoeppner.