To call this an ignominious start to the season, even by White Sox standards, would be doing a disservice to the Oxford English Dictionary on the bookshelf behind me right now. Contemptible; opprobrious, vituperative; truculent; there are plenty of ways that one could sum up getting outscored 20-3 over the first two games of the season, much less while becoming the first team in big league history to record 30+ strikeouts in those opening two games. Not great, Bob!
I have to imagine most players would agree—given the relative success of Spring Training and the general vibe of “it’s going to be better this time!” surrounding this roster entering the last week of March, it’s an early-season faceplant that’s simultaneously surprising and perfectly on brand. Still, pardon my optimism, they’d also almost certainly agree that the sky isn’t falling yet.
Two games are still two games, and the adage does apply that we’re only paying attention to them because they have no surrounding context beyond the excitement of the season’s start, which often makes such flops feel outsized, even with as lopsided of a scoring margin as the first two games of this set. While the sheer volume of losing the last few years has been horrid, for my money, none of them has been as purely frustrated as 2022’s even 81-81 record. You may recall that the defending AL Central champs got off to a 6-2 start that year before engineering an eight-game losing streak from which they never really recovered. Perspective, my friends!
Anyhow, below you can find the lineup that Will Venable will be sending onto American Family Field as he tries to salvage the series.
Anthony Kay makes his South Side debut on the hill, seeing his first big league action since 2023 and his first start since 2021. Originally a first round pick of the Mets, Kay was dealt alongside now-Twins starter Simeon Woods-Richardson in a 2019 deadline deal that brought Marcus Stroman from Toronto to Queens. After washing out of the majors, Kay reinvented himself in two years pitching for the Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars in the Japan Central League before catapulting back to the States on the strength of a 1.74 ERA and league-best 57.5% ground ball rate.
The main arsenal change that Kay brings back with him is a new sinker that serves as his primary fastball against lefties and helps generate all those ground balls. In Spring Training, he employed two distinct arsenals. He comes at lefties with the sinker and a low-80s sweeper, a classic ground ball combination of sinkers in on the hands with sweepers breaking off the outer edge of the plate. Against righties he pairs his traditional four-seamer with a 90 mph slider that has just enough break to be distinct from a cutter. That’s when he uses the change up as an out-pitch, typically employing it with one or two strikes and an aggressive hitter.
Thoughts and notes on the rest of the lineup:
• Per statcast, Chase Meidroth’s chopped a few inches off his bat path and has squared up virtually everything he’s made contact with, which to an optimist might indicate that he’s learning to leverage his excellent pitch recognition into attacking more of the pitches he likes.
• Murakami already strikes me as a three-true-outcome god, something in the vein of prime Adam Dunn (pre-White Sox version) with more athleticism, he should be batting in the two spot for the rest of time.
• While I don’t usually care about lineup construction, I am extremely concerned about Venable’s seeming dedication to alternating lefties with righties in the lineup. If the White Sox had the analytics department of the Yankees or Astros, I might think there’s something to it. At the moment, it feels as if hitters are arbitrarily being put in prime lineup spots based on where they swing it from.
• I know it doesn’t positionally work out, but one has to wonder if there are any thoughts in the clubhouse about Everson Pereira and Tristan Peters getting consistent burn while last year’s team home run leader rides the pine. If I had to make a guess, this is being treated as an extended Spring Training battle to see who gets to keep a spot once Brooks Baldwin is back from the IL.
Here’s how Pat Murphy and the Brew Crew are countering as they go for the sweep:
The title of the tweet says everything that’s interesting about this one. Mark Attanasio’s stinginess may have spared the White Sox from having to face Freddy Peralta during this series, but today, they’ll see his replacement. Brandon Sproat was a second round pick of the Mets in 2024, and quickly found his way onto top-100 prospect lists the next two seasons while being the centerpiece of the deal that sent Peralta to Queens.
Also making his big league debut is another Brewer who’s spent the last two years on those lists in catcher Jeferson Quero (pronounced yeff-er-son). He’s unrelated to Edgar, but their profiles aren’t actually all that different, with excellent plate discipline and contact ability compensating for middling power. He’s a bit more tooled up behind the plate than his Cuban counterpart, but after watching the Brewers run wild over Reese McGuire yesterday, perhaps Sox hitters will be inclined to challenge the young backstop.
First pitch is at 1:10 p.m. CT, and will be available on TV via CHSN and radio via WMVP AM 1000.
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