Gamethread: White Sox at Twins

@whitesox photo credit

Jekyll and Hyde are back... I mean, Reynaldo Lopez is on the bump for the Sox in Minnesota. Here are the Game Scores (FanGraphs) for the last four starts for Lopez: 14, 96, 14, and 74. So, it's either really good, or worse than atrocious which pretty much sums up his season. Unfortunately, it does not look like a premier start is on the horizon.

Lopez has started two games against the Twins this season and has been awful. He has a 36 Game Score which did end up being a quality start because of errors. He also has a Game Score of 7 when he allowed 8 runs and three homers in just 3 2/3 innings back in May. Both of these games were at Minnesota like this one tonight, so I'm not really expecting a great performance by Sox pitching.

On the other side is Jose Berrios, an actual good pitcher. In 181 innings this season, he has a 3.63 ERA which would be a career best mark. He is not striking out as many people but his walks have also decreased and that combination seems to be working. Overall he has done fine against the White Sox but James McCann, Eloy Jimenez, and Jose Abreu have done well against him. McCann has three homes in just 21 at-bats against Berrios and Abreu has a .758 OPS. In Eloy's first season, he has four hits including a homer in ten tries so the middle of the lineup does like seeing Berrios at least.

Also a special on this date courtesy of Jim Thome:

Statistics check:
Tim Anderson (.332) still leads the AL in batting average over DJ LeMahieu (.328).
Jose Abreu (117) still leads the AL in RBI over Jorge Soler (108).
Yoan Moncada (5.0) moved into 9th place for single-season fWAR by a White Sox 3rd baseman. He also moved into second with wRC+ (137) with the same parameters.
Since 1969, Lucas Giolito has the third most strikeouts (228) and second best K/9 (11.62) in a single season among White Sox starters.

Lineups: