The White Sox kicked off the month of September nicely with a win over the Twins, and they will try again tonight with Davis Martin on the mound making his 21st start of the season. Chicago posted 12 hits in Monday’s win, so ideally the offense can stay on pace and make it a bad day for Minnesota’s righthanded starter Simeon Woods Richardson.
Prior to tonight’s game, the White Sox made another announcement today, and thankfully it did not include the abuser that is still rotting in Triple-A:
Woods Richardson is making his 18th start of the season, and is 5-4 across 84 1/3 innings with 71 strikeouts. He has a 4.59 ERA and 1.423 WHIP, which backs up his brutal 10.1% walk rate as he allows way too many free baserunners. Woods Richardson’s strikeout rate isn’t super high in comparison to his walks at 19.3%, and his 5.15 FIP tells us that he might actually be slightly less effective than even his ERA is showing.
It sure would be cool if the South Side bats could get it going again while up against Woods Richardson, and with guys like Kyle Teel, Colson Montgomery, and Mike Tauchman in the lineup, we might be in good shape for the Good Guys to do just that. Teel has been on fire, and is slashing .316/.400/.443 with an .824 OPS over the last month, and he’s also walked 10 times, tied with Miguel Vargas for the most in the same time frame. Teel will be rocking in the two-spot tonight while making the start behind the plate. Tauchman will continue to hold down the leadoff spot, while Colson will be the clean-up hitter batting fourth — definitely not a bad place to be when you can’t stop mashing homers.
Both Will Robertson and Bryan Ramos were called up over the last few days, and they will be in the lineup batting back-to-back at the end of the order, playing right field and third base, respectively.
For the Good Guys, Davis Martin is holding onto a 4.03 ERA across his 116 innings, and has struggled in his last few outings with a 4.58 ERA over his last seven starts — including giving up four (three earned) against the Yankees last week. Martin’s WHIP hasn’t been great for majority of the season (1.284 to date), and he has struggled with walks since July, with seven in two starts that month, and another 12 in August across five, so hopefully he can keep Minnesota off the base paths.
Davis will have to deal with some hot-hitting Twins players, including Byron Buxton who is leading off and currently chasing a 30/30 season (29 homers, 21 stolen bases), and he even mashed an RBI double yesterday. Trevor Larnach has also been hitting well over the last month, slashing .300/.372/.486 with an .858 OPS, and he will bat second behind Buxton. Matt Wallner is holding down the clean-up spot for Minnesota and he’s been interesting as he has the third-highest OPS (.801) in the last 30 days, but he’s also batting .194. Shoutout to hitting home runs, as Wallner has six, which is tied for Buxton for the most this past month.
First pitch will take place at 6:40 p.m. CT at Target Field as the Sox look to take two in a row. If you’re tuning into the TV broadcast on CHSN, the good news is that it’s also Dog Day in Minnesota! If not, you’ll still get the lovely broadcast with Len Kasper and Darrin Jackson at ESPN Chicago AM 1000.
