Game 124 Preview: White Sox @ Angels

White Sox (54-66) @ Angels (60-63)

Game 2 of this 4 game set and the Angels have a sweep in progress. In fact, if the Angels DID sweep, they would be back at .500 on the season - just to tease us a little bit. This will be the first meetup of these two teams in 2019. Last year, the Angels won the season series 5 games to 2.

Know your foe:

Game 1 Notables:

Mike Trout, 4 for 4 with a walk and home run
Andrew Heaney, 7 IP, 3 ER, QS
Jose Abreu, 2 for 4 with 2 HR and 3 RBI

Weather Forecast

GAME 2

(L) Patrick Sandoval (5.59) v. (R) Lucas Giolito (3.42 ERA)
Friday, Aug 16th @ 7:07PM

Summary:

Patrick Sandoval will be making the 3rd start of his very young career. He had a promising debut against the Reds but struggled a bit in Boston on Sunday, giving up 6 hit sand 4 runs over 4.2 innings. In that outing, Sandoval also struck out 4 and walked 4. In total, he has 6 walks and 12 Ks spread over 9.2 innings. That’s a great K rate but pretty terrible walk numbers that he is going to have to bring down.

Lucas Giolito has quietly put together a pretty great season. He boasts a 4.2 bWAR, 1.127 WHIP, and 3.42 ERA. He’s also racked up 171 Ks over 136.2 inning. Giolito held the Angels to 3 runs over 6 innings last July. Max Stassi and Justin Upton have the most exposure to Giolito and they have both gone 1 for 5 in 6 plate appearances each. David Fletcher is 2 for 3 and Shohei Ohtani is 1 for 3 with a home run. Despite his great numbers, Giolito is not immune to bad game. From June 19th to July 25th, Giolito had 3 starts in which he gave up 6 or 7 runs.

Current Standings (sorted by playoff odds)

Notes/Credits:
(Pitch tracking data from baseballsavant.mlb.com)
(Splits from FanGraphs Splits Tool and Baseball Reference)
(Standings/odds from fivethirtyeight.com)