Gamethread: Cubs at White Sox

The last time he faced off against the arch-rival Chicago Cubs, Lucas Giolito did his part in trying to avoid the series sweep and picked up the “W” for his efforts, beating the Cubs 5-3. The righthander finds himself in a slightly different situation this time around. Instead of looking to avoid a sweep, Giolito will look to secure the series win today, and give his team the opportunity to sweep, rather that be swept tomorrow.

However, in order to get the win today, Giolito is going to need to stop his struggles of late and hope for some better fortune. In the 24-year old’s last three starts, he has allowed 11 runs in 14.1 innings. Now, in Giolito’s defense, he has gotten extremely unlucky; if you remove the five-run first inning from his last start (which included two no-out fielder’s choice plays and an error), his stat line would be one run on five hits over five full innings for the game.

Between that last outing, and Giolito’s second-to-last start (no-decision, 7.0 IP, 3 ER), we could be previewing him today in a much different light. Hopefully Lucas can right his ship today and help the White Sox seal the series win.

On the other side of things, Jon Lester is on the bump for the Chicago Cubs this evening. Lester is red-hot right now, coming off of a seven-inning shutout effort against the Cincinnati Reds. Over the lefthander’s previous three starts, he boasts a record of 2-1, with an ERA of 1.45. Oh yeah, let’s not forget about 23 strikeouts over that span.

Time - 6:10pm CST

Watch - NBC Sports - Chicago (Home), WGN (Away)

Listen - WGN 720 (Home), 670 The Score (Away)

Starting Lineups