Thanks to last night’s 4-3 victory over a Padres team that can’t seem to beat AL teams (18-28), the White Sox now only need to go 5-3 the rest of the way to avoid a third straight season of triple-digit losses. If you look at the names of the starting pitchers, it would seem unlikely the magic number would be reduced tonight, but if you look at those pitchers’ records these days, there’s a decent shot.
Especially if the White Sox are better mudders.
The chance of a victory is because either the ravages
of age have caught up with Yu Darvish of the Padres, or the ravages of an elbow injury that kept off the mound until July — or maybe both. Whatever the cause, the 39-year-old righty is having by far the worst season of his 13-year MLB career, with an ERA of 5.63 that’s almost two full runs worse than his career average. The underlying numbers aren’t quite as bad, with an FIP of 4.83 and a respectable 1.139 WHIP, and he has still chalked up 60 Ks in 62 1/3 innings, but Darvish is having longball problems and has been particularly awful lately, allowing 13 earned runs in 18 2/3 innings in his last four starts.
White Sox starter Yoendrys Gómez has himself given up 11 earned runs in 19 innings in his last four starts, including a game when he walked six Yankees in four innings and one where he had gopher ball problems of his own against the Rays. Gómez was much better his last time out against the Guardians, though, so maybe he’s regaining form from earlier in the year.
As for lineups, the Sox have Miguel Vargas hitting cleanup, which may seem odd, except that he’s 3-for-5 with a homer against Darvish.
Gómez has never faced any of the Padres except Ramon Laureano, and that was a 1-for-3. Gavin Sheets was 0-for-3 with a BB and a K against his old teammates last night, and is in the 6-slot again tonight.
First pitch is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. Central, weather permitting, which it’s not expected to do — 90% chance of rain at six, 67% at 7, clearing after that but don’t count on an early night. Usual broadcast suspects, plus, presumably, the usual rain delay filler junk for however long it takes.
