After an offensive explosion from the White Sox on Monday, they return to Truist Park tonight looking for a series win over the Braves. The South Siders posted 19 hits last night, but the pitching staff was lucky there was so much run support, because they also surrendered 15 hits and nine runs.
Prior to the game, Chicago announced that they placed Owen White on the 15-day IL and recalled righthander Elvis Peguero from Triple-A Charlotte:
Shane Smith is making his 22nd start of the season, and while he was hot at the beginning of the year, he has struggled in his last seven games, accumulating a 6.99 ERA (not nice) across 28 1/3 innings with 32 strikeouts and 15 walks. Smith is still holding on to a 4.01 ERA for 2025 (101 innings) and gives up fewer home runs than most of the starting rotation, with 11 this year.
Smith will deal with an Atlanta lineup that isn’t as strong as it was just one year ago, but they’ve been hitting better as of late, ranking seventh in OPS (.787) and second in RBIs over the last two weeks. A lot of the success in this 14-game stretch has stemmed from hot streaks from Michael Harris II and Jurickson Profar. Harris is slashing .424/.424/.814 with six homers over the past two weeks — including one last night — with a 1.238 OPS. Profar will continue to hold down the leadoff spot and has also stepped up in the same timeframe, with five home runs and a 1.071 OPS, including two dingers yesterday with five RBIs.
On the other end, the Good Guys will face righthander Bryce Elder for the Braves, who had previously been an All-Star caliber pitcher in 2023, but has fallen off quite a bit while fluctuating between the big league squad and the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers the past year and a half. Elder has a 5.89 ERA in 20 starts this season (107 innings) and has struck out 87 batters while walking 41, with a weak 1.523 WHIP.
Lenyn Sosa has been fairly consistently offensively in 2025, and has racked up a .566 slugging percentage and .829 OPS over the last two weeks, while slashing .274/.302/.450 on the season, and leading the team in home runs (17). Sosa will hold down the cleanup spot tonight with Mike Tauchman in the top spot after yet another solid offensive performance on Monday, and Kyle Teel finds himself up in the order tonight in the three-hole after hitting a bomb last night.
Since Chicago is on the East Coast this week, tune in a bit earlier for the first pitch at 6:10 p.m. CT on CHSN, or listen to the radio broadcast on ESPN Chicago AM 1000. Go Sox!
