Game Thread: Royals (67-65) at White Sox (48-83)

Monday’s gem from Shane Smith led to a glorious 7-0 win against the Royals, and the White Sox will look to do it again tonight with lefthander Martín Pérez on the mound. The South Siders put up 11 hits last night and served Kansas City their first shutout of the season, and it certainly helped that the pitching was also on point.

Pérez was solid in his first few starts this season before an elbow injury sent him to the IL in mid-April, and he is now making his third start since rejoining the team on August 13. In his two August starts, he’s given up just one earned run (two total) in 8 2/3 innings with nine strikeouts against two walks — and looked really solid in his 5 1/3 inning start in Atlanta last week, where he allowed just three hits and one unearned run. Martín has a 2.51 ERA across his 28 2/3 total innings with 27 strikeouts (a 22.9% clip) and 13 walks (11% walk rate), amounting to a 1.151 WHIP. He could definitely lower his walk rate, and although his sample size is fairly small, the Royals’ offense has the second-worst walk rate in MLB at 7.1%, trailing only the dismal Colorado Rockies.

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The good news for Pérez is that Kansas City ranks 23rd in MLB for team OPS (.700), though their offense has been fairly solid since the All-Star break, with a .771 OPS, just a couple spots lower than your Chicago White Sox. He will, however, still have to deal with Bobby Witt Jr. batting second, who ranks 15th in OPS in all of baseball and is slugging .504 on the season. Maikel Garcia will hold down the leadoff spot and is leading the Royals lineup in batting average and second in OPS only behind Witt.

For the Royals, righthander Michael Lorenzen will be making his 20th start of the season. He has posted a 4.50 ERA across his 108 innings alongside a 1.343 WHIP. Lorenzen has struck out 94 batters, but he doesn’t strike them out at an aggressive rate, sitting at a 20% strikeout rate on the season. Alternatively, his 6.9% walk rate is actually pretty solid, and it is the one spot where his StatCast rankings show value. The White Sox have been hitting much better since the All-Star break, so Lorenzen might have to deal with the rookies flashing their power (we can only hope).

Chicago has the fifth-best OPS in the second half (.783), are tied for fourth-most home runs (55), and the third-most RBIs (184) in all of baseball. Mike Tauchman has held down the leadoff spot for a while now, and he’s remained a hit merchant this entire season, so there’s no reason to fix what is not broken. Miguel Vargas has been mashing doubles this year, with 30 on the season — 12 higher than the next batter. Colson Montgomery was initially set to bat third, but the team sent an updated lineup out that had him a bit further down in the order. Montgomery is slugging .541 since coming up from the minors, so really, I’m good with wherever he is batting.

The Good Guys will take the mound with the first pitch at 6:40 p.m. CT in hopes of snagging a series win early in the week. You can tune in to the usual spots: either on the radio at ESPN Chicago AM 1000, or on TV at CHSN. Let’s go Sox!