One of Hawk Harrelson’s (many) favorite sayings was, “It’s not who you play, it’s when you play ’em.” It’s both, of course, but at least Hawk was half-right in this case.
The “when you play ’em” part is a split for the White Sox against the Phillies — the unlucky part being that the Phils have turned their season around since Don Mattingly took over as manager, the lucky part being somehow scheduling a series in Philadelphia where they won’t face either Christopher Sanchez or Zack Wheeler.
Instead,
today the Phillies will send out rookie righthander Andrew Painter, who has a lofty 5.74 ERA and has allowed 64 hits in 53 1/3 innings. Painter had been doing better of late — until he ran up against the Dodgers last time out and gave up four runs in 3 1/3 innings, including two homers. Given how the ball soared out of the park last night, a propensity to surrender long fly balls looks to be a bit of a problem.
The White Sox counter with an opener strategy, with lefty Bryan Eisert getting the start ahead of Sean Burke, presumably because Eisert’s a lefty and so are the two sluggers in the top three spots in the Philly lineup. That’s not as clear-cut a decision as it might seem: While Bryce Harper has pretty normal platoon splits, Kyle Schwarber is crushing southpaws to the tune of a 1.002 OPS.
The announcing crew has taken to calling the pitcher who follows an opener “bulk reliever,” which sounds like a constipation remedy but in this case means Burke. The righty has a 3.72 ERA (3.33 FIP) and was solid last time out, giving up just one run in 5 1/3 innings (though that was against the lowly Tigers).
Painter will face a Sox lineup with only two hitting from the right side, which means without Randal Grichuk, who had two homers last night before being pinch-hit for by … Andrew Benintendi:
Eisert/Burke will take on a Phillies lineup led by Schwarber, who leads the majors with 23 dingers.
First pitch is scheduled for 3:05 p.m. Central on a scorcher in Philadelphia, sunny and 90°, with any fly ball to right a candidate for making the seats given wind gusts to 27 mph heading that direction.
Usual broadcast suspects, except John Schriffen is off to go announce UFC fights somewhere, which seems more his speed. Maybe with luck, he won’t come back.
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