The series opener between the White Sox and Guardians will determine the AL Central. If that sounds overdramatic, perhaps you haven’t watched the last two weeks of South Side baseball.
Chicago limps into this game looking to right many wrongs. In their last 10 games, they’ve lost seven and produced a -9 run differential. The bats hit .179 with runners in scoring position, going a measly 14-for-78, and the rotation is out of steam. Starters have averaged 3.57 runs allowed in their last seven games before getting yanked in the middle of the fifth. Coming out of this slow stretch, the South Siders will be playing with a deck stacked against them.
Walking onto Progressive Field hasn’t been easy for this organization: Since 2020, the Sox are 16-28 in Cleveland, and that’s including the three-game series the Guardians took earlier this year. The White Sox haven’t swept the Guardians in a series in the last six years, and the story only gets uglier going back to the late 2010s. Not only does Cleveland have home-field advantage this week, but they just wrapped up a 6-4 record in their last 10 games and are eager to reclaim their spot as the division leader, which they last shared with the Sox on July 21. This match between the hungry Guardians and white-knuckling Sox will be a major tone-setter for the final 13 games of the year.
With a rotation crawling towards the end of the season, Sean Newcomb is once again an opener for the White Sox, against Gavin Williams, who has been all over the place in terms of quality outings this year. Williams has endurance on his side, averaging just short of six innings pitched per game, but Newcomb has been successful as an opener.
Here’s how the Sox line up at the plate:
And here’s how the Guards match up against them:
Don’t miss the first pitch, at 5:40 p.m. CDT on CHSN and ESPN Chicago WMVP 1000 AM.
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