60-48 this season

Last night was so fun. Watching Chris Sale battle and appear to be back to form after his break. Seeing him “know” he did it at the end of eighth inning when he took care of the Royals. It is all adding up to a most amazing and fun summer of baseball. The question was asked on Twitter last night about when the last time people remember this team being this fun to watch.

In keeping with the fun, Robin is sending out the following guys to take care of one of the Sox’s biggest nemesis of late:

Bacon 2B, The Cuban Missile SS, Big Donkey DH, The King 1B, Alex Rios RF, AJ Pierzynski C,  The Cuban Tank LF, Jordan Danks CF, Ray Olmedo 3B. 

Jake “Dirt Bag” Peavy will start for the Sox tonight. Jake is making his 22nd start of the season and 11th at home. Over his last 10 home starts, he is 5-2 and he has given up 24 earned runs in 69 innings worth of work.

His last start against the Twins last week resulted in a win. He threw eight innings and allowed just one earned run on five hits. He did have eight strikeouts in the game. Against the Royals, he is 4-5 with a 4.92 ERA in 10 starts. At home, he has five starts and has gone 3-1 in those games. He has given up just 13 earned runs in 30 innings at home.

The last time Jake saw the PITA Royals, was just after the All-Star break in Kansas City. He ended up getting the loss in that game where he allowed six earned runs on a season-high 12 hits including two home runs. He did pitch six innings in that game. As for PITA Royals killers to Dirt Bag, those honors go to Billy Butler and Jeff “Frenchy” Francoeur. Butler has taken Jake out of the park three times and is hitting .389 against Jake. Frenchy hasn’t taken Jake out of the park, but he is hitting .333 against him. Of course, if Frenchy does what he did last night (minus the home run), that will be alright with fans.

45-63 on the season

Ned Yost, in keeping with the new culture change in KC will send out the following guys to back his man cy chen:

Alex Gordon LF, Chris Getz 2B, Mike Moustakas 3B, Billy Butler DH, Frenchy RF, Brayan Peña C, Eric Hosmer 1B, Tony Abreu SS, Jarrod Dyson CF.

Bruce “Cy” Chen will start for the PITAs tonight. The start will be the 24th of the season for Bruce. Chen is also trying to end his own personal winless streak. Currently, he has not won in his last seven starts. This could be a recipe for disaster for the White Sox as they have had trouble with soft-tossing lefty pitchers. Though, they have been doing much better against lefties of late.

The latest loss for Chen came against the Indians. The PITAs were up early pretty fast, but Chen was unable to shut down the opposition. Chen would have to settle for a no decision after getting pulled after 2.2 innings worth of work. The Royals would go on to win the game in 11 innings after how badly Chen pitched.

Against the Sox, Chen is 3-4 in 16 games, 11 of which were starts. He has allowed 32 earned runs in 75.1 innings. All of the wins Chen has against the Sox were during the 2011 season where he gave up two earned runs and held the team to a .104 batting average in 20 innings. Can we just say “ugh” about last season?

The last time Cy Chen faced was just after the All-Star break in Kansas City. He gave up six runs on nine hits and walked three in just 4.2 innings. Chen got another no decision when the Sox would go on to win the game in 14 innings. The Sox are going to have to rely on hitting to score runs as Chen has been rather stingy with walks. He is averaging just 2.13 walks per nine for the fifth best walks / 9 in the AL.

The Sox hitters who do the most damage against Chen? Dayan Viciedo and Kevin Youkilis. Paul Konerko has only hit .182 against Chen recently, but he has taken him out of the park once. AJ Pierzynski is hitting .333 against Chen and has also taken him out of the park. Hopefully the recent success the Sox have had playing baseball of late will stop their old nemesis in Chen in his tracks.

*Notes: AJ Pierzynski’s streak of hitting a home run ended at five games when he failed to hit one in last night’s game. Youk was a late scratch with a sore knee and De Aza is sitting again with back soreness. Last season was the first time the Royals won a season series against the Sox since 2000.