Game Thread: White Sox at Dodgers

Shane Smith and the South Siders will take on Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the defending World Champions in a three-game set

Coming off a series win, the White Sox (28-56) are heading to the City of Angels to take on the defending World Series champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers (53-32). LA is currently ranked first in their division (NL West) and the National League, and is also tied with the Detroit Tigers for first place in all of MLB with a .624 winning percentage. The South Siders shamefully own a .333 win percentage and are ranked second-to-last (29th) in MLB. They also hold a 9-32 record on the road, but they are 5-5 in their last 10 and are on a two-game win streak, so watch out, Dodgers.

A quick check-in from the White Sox as they also announced that Brooks Baldwin will be coming back up from Triple-A Charlotte, as Luis Robert Jr. was placed on the 10-day IL Sunday. Baldwin is most definitely racking up some solid airline miles.

On the mound for his 16th start of the season, Shane Smith will face a dangerous Dodgers lineup for the first time in his career. He has a 3.38 ERA on the season, but he struggled through his last couple of outings and allowed five earned runs in back-to-back games — accumulating a 5.60 ERA in four June starts. One of Smith’s main issues is that he tends to walk a lot of guys, and has a rough 9.9% walk rate against his 21.1% strikeout rate. His fastball and changeup are his most effective pitches, but the changeup fools the most hitters, resulting in a very low opponent batting average (.141) and an impressive whiff rate (33.8%). The great thing about Shane, however, is that he tends to find a way out of jams and uses his pitches efficiently to do so.

It must be kind of brutal when you know you have to face a team that is leading the league in the majority of the offensive categories: hits, home runs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. Additionally, LA boasts three players in the top 15 for OPS in all of baseball: Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith. Naturally, Smith will face them right away.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is making his 17th start for the Dodgers and has been excellent all season, as demonstrated by his 2.61 ERA, which ranks 10th in all of baseball and fourth in the National League. Yamamoto also walks people a bit too much (8.9% walk rate), but he balances it out somewhat with a 28.4% strikeout rate. Despite the free passes, he has a solid 1.048 WHIP this year. He throws his fastball (37%) and splitter (26.4%) the most, but the splitter seems to be part of the magic formula to his success, as it has a .148 opponent batting average and a 41.1% whiff rate.

He likely won’t have to work too hard against a White Sox offense that’s batting just .219 (fifth worst) over the past two weeks, though Kyle Teel is attempting to break that trend. In that same time period, he has slashed .400/.483/.560 with a 1.043 OPS, and had the go-ahead RBIs that led to Sunday’s win. Teel is batting fifth tonight, and Mike Tauchman will continue to hold it down at the top of the lineup.

It’s a late one, folks, and first pitch will take place at 9:10 p.m. CT. Get a nap in, whatever it takes, but tune in on CHSN or listen to the radio broadcast on ESPN Chicago AM 1000.