In the second series of the first homestand of the year, the White Sox (tied for 2nd in the AL Central) will host the Oakland Athletics (3rd in the AL West). It is a 3 game series before the White Sox get an off day.

2011 Records: White Sox: (6-3) Athletics: (4-5) Season series 0-0

2010 Season Series record: 4-5

All-time White Sox record against the Athletics: 261-283 (The White Sox are 134-133 at the Cell against the A’s)

In the three games, the following pitchers are expected to start for each team:

Mark Buehrle: 1-0, 7.36 ERA, 2K v. Dallas Braden: 0-1, 6.43 ERA, 3K

Edwin Jackson: 2-0, 1.93 ERA, 20K v. Trevor Cahill: 1-0, 1.42 ERA, 15K

John Danks: 0-1, 4.50 ERA, 13K v. Brett Anderson: 0-1, 1.93 ERA, 10K

Games will be at 7:10 pm CT Monday, 7:10 pm CT Tuesday, 1:10 pm CT Wednesday afternoon.

The White Sox took 3 of the 4 games against the Tampa Bay Rays. The offensive production has continued even with the absence of Big Donkey. Adam Dunn took batting practice on Sunday before the finale against the Rays and may be back in the lineup sometime this week. Even Alexei Ramirez who is a notorious slow starter is swinging a decent bat to start the season. The pitching has also slowly started to come around with good outings from Phil Humber as well as Will Ohman seeming to right the ship. Fans are still waiting on Matt Thornton to right the ship.

The A’s are coming off of a series win against the Minnesota Twins. (Thank you Oakland for that.) While they are coming off the series win, the White Sox historically haven’t played well against the west coast teams, particularly on the west coast. Given the history, things *might* fair quite well for the A’s. They are a young team that is slowly starting to put things together and have a very decent pitching staff to help them.

As for who’s hot: Josh Willingham is swinging a hot bat and has majority of the home runs for the team. Paul Konerko and Gordon Beckham are continuing to swing hot bats as well, with the King having an RBI in eight of the nine games this season and a hit in every game. As for who’s not so hot: Mark Buehrle has lost his last three starts against the A’s at the Cell and overall has a 1-7 record in his last six starts. Hideki Matsui isn’t fairing so well with a season average of .207 after a couple of hits on Sunday against the Twins. Defensively, the A’s as a whole aren’t doing well. They have a league-leading nine errors this season, despite going errorless in their last five games. Hopefully, the White Sox can take advantage and force the A’s into some errors that will lead to White Sox scoring.

As of right now, Aerys doesn’t have a correspondent for the Oakland Athletics. However, if you know of a girl who has a passion for the team and loves to write, have her contact us about being the correspondent for the A’s.