The upcoming schedule doesn’t present a lot aid for the Chicago White Sox, who’ve limped to a 7-12 begin.
First is the Tampa Bay Rays, who at 16-3 have the most effective document in baseball. Their season-opening profitable streak ended at 13 on April 14 with a 6-3 loss to Toronto. The Blue Jays, who took two of three in that sequence, are 11-8 and path the Rays by 5 video games within the loaded American League East.
The Rays and Blue Jays are up subsequent for the Sox.
“It’s definitely a challenge,” Sox supervisor Pedro Grifol mentioned after Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. “But we’ve got to play baseball. It doesn’t matter who we are playingagainst. A Major League Baseball game is a Major League Baseball game. We just have to go out there and prepare and compete.”
The six-game journey begins Friday with the primary of three in opposition to the Rays at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“They’re good teams but we’ve faced other good teams,” Sox starter Mike Clevinger mentioned Wednesday. “We’ve had a lot of games that have felt like we should have put it away and we haven’t put all the pieces together. This is going to be a good test.”
Here are three issues to search for in the course of the journey.
1. The Rays have flexed loads of muscle.
The Rays entered Thursday main the majors in a number of offensive classes, together with dwelling runs with 42.
That’s the second-most by way of a group’s first 19 video games in major-league historical past since 1901 behind the St. Louis Cardinals’ 44 in 2000.
The Rays homered in every of their first 19 video games, the second-longest streak to open a season since 1901 behind the Seattle Mariners, who had a 20-game run in 2019.
White Sox pitchers have surrendered 25 homers, which ranked ninth within the majors coming into Thursday. They allowed 13 within the three-game sequence in opposition to the San Francisco Giants in early April and 10 within the 12 video games since.
Yandy Díaz hit his team-leading sixth homer for the Rays in Wednesday’s 8-0 win in opposition to the Cincinnati Reds. Jake Burger and Luis Robert Jr. are tied for the Sox group lead with 5 homers. Burger has homered in 4 of the group’s final six video games.
“Can’t make mistakes on him,” Grifol mentioned of Burger on Tuesday. “And if you do, he’s strong enough to mishit a ball out of the ballpark and he’s strong enough to hit a ball 118 mph.”
2. Saturday includes a stellar pitching matchup.
The Rays have six shutouts, becoming a member of Detroit in 1945, Cleveland in 1966 and Texas in 1981 as the one groups since 1901 with that many by way of 19 video games, in line with MLB.com.
Shane McClanahan bought it rolling for the Rays on opening day with six scoreless innings in a 4-0 victory in opposition to the Tigers. The left-hander is 4-0 with a 1.57 ERA in 4 begins.
He completed sixth within the AL Cy Young voting final season and can begin Saturday in opposition to the 2022 AL Cy Young runner-up in Dylan Cease. The right-hander has been probably the most constant starter for the Sox once more this season — 2-0 with a 2.01 ERA and 29 strikeouts in 4 begins.
Walks proceed to be an space of concern for Cease. He has allowed a team-high 12, together with 5 in his final begin Sunday in opposition to the Baltimore Orioles.
“I still need to do better with it,” Cease mentioned after the sport. “Just got to execute better. Walks will kill you.”
3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is 1 of the recent hitters within the Blue Jays lineup.
Sox designated hitter/outfielder Eloy Jiménez was wanting ahead to being Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s teammate in the course of the World Baseball Classic. But the Blue Jays first baseman was unavailable for the Dominican Republic due to reported irritation in his proper knee.
“That’s something that I would like to do any time, play with him,” Jiménez mentioned on March 5. “But not at this moment.”
The two will meet up Monday for the start of a three-game sequence at Rogers Centre.
Guerrero is off to a powerful begin, rating third within the AL in hits (25) and fourth in batting common (.338) coming into Thursday. Matt Chapman leads the AL at .397, and Bo Bichette is third at .354. Bichette leads the AL with 29 hits and Chapman is second with 27.
Jiménez is making an attempt to get again right into a rhythm after spending April 5-14 on the injured listing with a left hamstring pressure. He’s hitting .190 with no homers and 4 RBIs. Grifol isn’t involved with the facility numbers.
“I know that (Andrew Vaughn, who hit his first homer Wednesday) and Eloy and some of these guys, when I’m sitting here next week, we could be talking about each one of them having four or five homers already,” Grifol mentioned Wednesday.
“I’ve seen it way too many times that too much emphasis is put on ‘home-run hitters’ and why they haven’t hit some home runs and then seven days later they’ve got four or five on the board and what we were talking about the previous week was just probably nonsense.”
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