Gamethread: White Sox at Diamondbacks

After this, it goes on your permanent record.

Well, OK, in baseball everything is permanent record. There’s probably some huge database that has stored every Little League pitch since the proliferation of the Apple II, and that includes what happens in spring training.

But after today, it’s the permanent record that your parents and teachers and that mean assistant principal warned you about all the time. Spring training stats are like the grade you got in summer PE. Come Thursday, it’s like English and math.

There are some very nice White Sox spring training stats this year (led on the batting side by Yoán Moncada), and some very bad ones (Daniel Palka). On the pitching side, ERAs have ranged from 0.00 to 36.00. So yeah, spring stats are just sort of ... there.

As for the W-L record, best forgotten. Prime example of thing meaninglessness of that was 2018, when the Sox went 16-12 in the spring and didn’t match that win total in the regular season until they’d piled up 33 losses. The difference this year is that we have to hope the spring record is meaningless.

So, here we go. Last rites of spring. Roster set for the real thing when it comes Thursday.

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Ivan Nova gets his final spring fling against Merrill Kelly for the Diamondbacks, who spent the past four seasons in Korea and last pitched in the states for the Durham Bulls, so long ago that Kevin Costner was his catcher.

Sox lineup looks like an Opening Day preview:

So does Arizona’s:

1. Adam Jones (R) RF
2. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B
3. Wilmer Flores (R) 2B
4. David Peralta (L) LF
5. Jake Lamb (L) 1B
6. Ketel Marte (S) CF
7. Nick Ahmed (R) SS
8. Carson Kelly (R) C
9. Merrill Kelly (R) P

Game time is 2:40 Central at Chase Field. It’s supposed to be an MLB.TV freebie, and if you can’t catch that, since the game is at a big boy field, Gameday will actually show pitches and provide some info, unlike earlier in the spring.