August 18th Game #126 Preview: White Sox @ Angels

White Sox (55-67) @ Angels (61-64)

Time to wrap up this series and hopefully with a win. Thanks to their comeback last night, the Angles are poised to take the series against the White Sox before heading out on the road to Texas. David Fletcher, who went through a bit of a dry spell in early August, is now hitting .433 over his last 7 games.

Game 3 Notables (and un-notables):

David Fletcher: 2 for 4
Goodwin/Trout: 2 RBI each
Team RISP: 1 for 8

Weather Forecast

GAME 4

(R) Griffin Canning (4.86) v. (R) Dylan Cease (5.54 ERA)
Sunday, Aug 18th @ 1:07PM

Summary:

Among current Angels starters, Griffin Canning has the highest fWAR at 1.0. Not real impressive for a team overall, but a decent rookie season for Canning who was pitching in college just barely over 2 years ago. His last time out, Canning needed 80 pitches to get through 4 innings while giving up 3 runs. He was sharp in his start prior to that with 0 runs allowed over 6 innings while striking out 7.

Like Canning, 23 year old Dylan Cease is in the midst of his rookie season. However, with much different results. Cease has a 5.54 ERA with a -0.1 bWAR over his 7 starts. He has gone deeper into games, however, never throwing less than 5 innings and logging a quality start his last time out against the Astros. Cease throws an upper 90s fastball with a plus curve and slider but he’s also been walking batters at a high clip.

Current Standings

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