Alright boys, the Sox are coming off a tough loss last night and are now at risk of losing their third straight game for just the second time all season.  The momentum is in the Astros’ favor right now, but we have our stopper on the mound tonight.  Lance Lynn, one of the most bad ass players to ever baseball, enters today with an AL leading 1.51 ERA, an 88th percentile xwOBA, and 1.9 fWAR on the season (19th overall | 6th in AL).  All those numbers were even better prior to a shit start against the Rays earlier this week.  Point is Lance has been damn good this year behind his fastball heavy arsenal and that’s not going to change tonight.  Sure, you could point out that the Astros are one of the better teams against 4-seamers & cutters or that Altuve, Brantley, & Alvarez have all roughed up Lynn in the past.  None of that matters right now as Lynn can still taste the stink from Monday’s loss and will be even more amped up than usual.  I’m confident he gets the job done tonight as the true ace of the staff.

For the Astros will be lefty Framber Valdez, who will be making his 5th start of the season due to a spring training injury.  Valdez has pitched very well in his first four starts, putting up a 1.41 ERA, 3.48 FIP, & 85th percentile xwOBA.  Framber’s arsenal is built around a sinker that he uses to induce ground balls at an elite rate (64% over his career).  He supplements that with an excellent curveball (93% percentile spin rate | 47% whiff rate), a changeup used to keep RH hitters off balanced, and the occasion 4 seamer.  His weapon is no doubt the curve, but surprisingly we are one of the better teams in baseball against curveballs.  We also remain the best team in baseball against LHP, although our dominance has started to trend in the wrong direction as of late.

Overall, I really like our odds tonight.  In terms of the lineup, the only person who has really faced Valdez is Goodwin and he’s been very bad (SSS).  That’s perfect as we should be rocking an OF of Vaughn in LF (if available), Engel in CF, & Leury in RF.  Given Valdez’s ground-ball tendencies, I would try to space out the four slow guys by batting Grandal 2nd, Jose 4th, Vaughn 6th, & Mercedes 8th, but I don’t anticipate happening.  Regardless, we need to take advantage of our opportunities tonight as Valdez doesn’t walk a lot of guys or give a lot of HRs.  We can’t leave 11 guys on base again and can’t have our managers throwing away outs early in the game.  If we can avoid those two pitfalls, then I think we’re going to win this one.

Let’s fucking go!

Mods - Can you please change the title to “Sox @ Astros”?

Sox have a decent chance because they are facing a LH starter. Lynn will hopefully be good, but Houston spanked his ass last season so hopefully he will bounce back against them. My main concern for today is Vaughn is OK long term. They are at the limits of their OF depth with Roberts, Hamilton and Eaton out. 

Would love to see: TA SS; YM DH; YM 3B; JA 1B; AV LF; YG C; BG RF; AE CF; DM 2B, LG the only Sox likely to crash this party at 2B or in the OF.

The other good news tonight is Crochet and Burdi are likely the only pitchers not available out of the bullpen tonight.

Bullpen usage.

Go Sox!

Edited June 19, 20214 yr by South Side Hit Men

Game on Fox. AJ in the booth.

A win would be dandy.

The road to splitting the series starts today 

41 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

Sox have a decent chance because they are facing a LH starter. Lynn will hopefully be good, but Houston spanked his ass last season so hopefully he will bounce back against them. My main concern for today is Vaughn is OK long term. They are at the limits of their OF depth with Roberts, Hamilton and Eaton out. 

Would love to see: TA SS; YM DH; YM 3B; JA 1B; AV LF; YG C; BG RF; AE CF; DM 2B, LG the only Sox likely to crash this party at 2B or in the OF.

The other good news tonight is Crochet and Burdi are likely the only pitchers not available out of the bullpen tonight.

Bullpen usage.

Go Sox!

cool site, the indians pen is getting in some work

My lineup would be: Anderson 7, Engel 8, Moncada 5, Abreu 3, Grandal 2, Vaughn DH, Mendick 4, Garcia 7, Goodwin 9

Hopefully Vaughn is ok cause we need his bat in there today vs. the lefty.

6 innings 3 runs is a shit start. Tough crowd!

2 minutes ago, joejoedairy said:

6 innings 3 runs is a shit start. Tough crowd!

6 innings 3 runs is a shit start at home against Baltimore. It's a decent start on the road against Houston.

5 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Mods - Can you please change the title to “Sox @ Astros”?

Just an FYI, you can edit your own thread title when you edit the first post. The mods stole our ability to delete threads, but they didn't steal that yet. 

Edited June 19, 20214 yr by ron883

Houston absolutely murders Lynn.  Look at those splits, yikes.

Yermin once again batting 5th.  Yeesh! 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 20214 yr by SoxFanForever
Update

 

1 hour ago, ron883 said:

Just an FYI, you can edit your own thread title when you edit the first post. The mods stole our ability to delete threads, but they didn't steal that yet. 

Oh wow I did not know that...thanks!

1 hour ago, SoxFanForever said:

Yermin once again batting 5th.  Yeesh! 

 

 

 

Abreu, Yermin, Grandal, & Vaughn all in a row, so much for breaking up the slow guys...lol.

?

If the game is on Fox, does that mean it’s not on mlb.tv?

8 minutes ago, Leonard Zelig said:

If the game is on Fox, does that mean it’s not on mlb.tv?

That's how it used to be, not sure if it's still that way.

Cardinals game got postponed, so Sox game should get a wider distribution on FOX.

Go Sox! Been a tough two days but keep grinding. 

3 hours ago, SoxFanForever said:

Yermin once again batting 5th.  Yeesh! 

 

Like this lineup.

 

 

Looking forward to the 0-4 Mercedes 6 LOB special tonight

4 minutes ago, reiks12 said:

Looking forward to the 0-4 Mercedes 6 LOB special tonight

If the over/under for Yermin’s hits today was 0.5, I’d be taking the over!

Love that Vaughn is OK to play!

Yermin is still raking vs. LHPs (3 for 8 with a 2B his last two starts; .966 OPS this year). Hopefully he can build confidence with some good at bats tonight.

Tim Anderson is my pick for a HR tonight.

Go Sox!!