Gamethread: White Sox at Reds

It’s Matt Davidson day!

The White Sox’s leading spring slugger (.500 average, 1.783 OPS) starts at first base today, batting cleanup.

Oh, and a killer 1-2-3 of Reynaldo Lopez, Alec Hansen and Dane Dunning take the hill to start the game.

Time: 2:05 p.m. CST

Webcast: none

TV: none

Radio: MLB.TV

Lopez takes the mound against the Cincinnati Reds for his first spring start today. After his call-up to The Show last August 11, Lopez went 3-3 in eight starts with a 4.72 ERA, 30 strikeouts, 14 walks and 0.0 WAR. Lopez has never faced the Reds.

Michael Lorenzen started 21 games in his rookie year of 2015, but none since. The righthander gets the start today after pitching in relief for all of 2017, finishing 14 games and snagging two saves, with an 8-4 record, 4.45 ERA and 0.2 WAR.

Lorenzen’s sole career appearance against the White Sox came in a May 10, 2015 start, a five-inning effort where he yielded seven hits and four walks but escaped allowing just one earned run. The game was notable for its finish: After David Robertson blew a 3-1 White Sox lead in the ninth, the Pale Hose solved Aroldis Chapman with a two-out rally in the bottom half, with singles from Avisail Garcia and Alexei Ramirez, wild pitch offense moving the runners to second and third, and ... wait for it ... Gordon Beckham flaring a 2-2 offering from Chapman into short left for the game-winner!

Garcia and Jose Abreu were the only current White Sox to have faced Lorenzen in that game, both going 1-for-3, but neither are in the lineup this afternoon.

Hansen makes his spring debut, following Lopez on the mound today. With Dane Dunning relieving Hansen, three-fifths of a future Chisox starting rotation could be holding down the first half of this afternoon’s tilt. Too bad we can’t check it out on the tee-vee.

With both games on the road, don’t count on too much detailed reporting to emerge out of today’s B-Game in Peoria vs. the San Diego Padres, where among other things Michael Ynoa is going to try to sort himself out.

In tomorrow’s sold-out Camelback Ranch tilt against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Miguel Gonzalez takes the pill.