Life In The Cell

Angels vs White Sox - A Battle of 1st Place Teams - Preview

The Sox have themselves a tough little series on their hands; they play the first place Angels who are a half game back of Tampa for the best record in the bigs. Luckily for the Sox (and for us) it’s at the Cell, where the Sox are 24 games over .500, good for 4th best in the bigs. The Angels are coming off of a series win at Comerica, which has helped them reduce their magic number down to 6. The Halo’s could actually wrap up their division by the end of this series, with a little help from whomever plays the Rangers, but let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.

In tonight’s matchup, the Sox send Mark Buehrle to the mound to face Dustin Moseley. Originally this matchup was going to be Buehrle against Weaver, but thankfully Weaver was scratched due to some cuts on his fingers. You may be looking at Weaver’s year and wondering why I’m so thankful; I know it is a small sample size, but in his career against the White Sox Jered is 3-0 (in 4 starts) with a miniscule 0.34 ERA. That ERA is due to the 1 run he’s given up in his life to the White Sox. Small sample size or not, I’d much rather take my chances against Moseley, who in 6 starts this year has posted a 6.60 ERA. His problem is he allows a lot of hits (40 in 30 innings) and walks (13). He hasn’t pitched in the bigs since July 13, which obviously bodes well for the Sox. Judging from his game log, something like 4 runs in 5 innings, seems like a reasonable expectation.

Buehrle, has been pulling the old Javy Vazquez act of Jekyl and Hyding his starts; that is to say, alternating good and bad starts. His last start, he got lit up for 7 runs in 4 2/3. The start before he gave up just 2 in 6 2/3. The pattern extends back another pair of starts, which leads logically to the conclusion you can expect a quality start for Mr. Buehrle tonight. I may be jumping a bit to conclusions here, but it’s hard to draw any sort of expectations from Buehrle. Since the ASB he’s posted a 5.11 ERA, but that’s mostly due to some rather poor starts rather than a consistently poor performance. 2 of his worst 3 starts of the season have come in the past month which inflated his ERA.

Game 2 pits John Lackey against Gavin Floyd. Floyd has been the opposite of Buehrle lately. To borrow from Joe Morgan, he’s shown some consistency, which has been badly needed by this team as of late. He’s thrown 4 straight quality starts, which is good for a 2.39 ERA over that time span. Floyd will have to keep that run of quality pitching up as he’s going up against Lackey who’s really damn good. On the year he is sporting a 3.10 ERA which is good for 5th in the league. He has been noticeably less effective in the second half, sporting a 3.92 ERA. That’s much more human and thanks due in part to him allowing a higher number of hits.

The final game has John Danks against Joe Saunders. This is the game I’m most interested in, not because it has the potential to be the rubber match, but because of John Danks. As I wrote before, Danks may have hit the wall. In his last two starts, he’s struggled to keep the ball down, and has allowed 4 runs in 4 innings of work. He looks like a pitcher that’s reached the end of his rope, and if he continues to struggle, it may be in the Sox’ best interest to try and find someone else to start. Of course, he could go out and throw a patented John Danks’ special and allay all our fears, but that’s yet to be seen.

Saunders has pitched pretty well all season, posting a 3.14 ERA prior to Aug 22. He then proceed to throw two consecutive stinkers. A 5 1/3 innings 6 run effort and a 1 1/3 innings 6 run effort. He broke up that bad run by throwing a quality start last time out. It’s quite possible he’s feeling a bit fatigued or of course, it could just be a rought patch that’s he’s got under control.

Thanks to Weaver’s injury, the Sox have a very winnable game tonight. Originally as things were set up, the Sox were facing the worst possible trio of Angels’ starters. A win tonight would take a lot of pressure off the Sox (as well as their fans), especially after the Twins lost last night to fall 1.5 games back.