Gamethread: White Sox at Angels

Last night was all fun and games up until the very end. Literally.

The good news is that game-day jitters are out of the way. Kind of like the first cake in a batch — sometimes it’s a dud. Sometimes, Bummer proves to be a bummer. Now that the dud is out of the way, that means our boys should bounce back strong tonight.

Tonight’s match-up brings Dallas Keuchel vs. Andrew Heaney. Heaney is a big fan of that 4-seam fastball, throwing it about 58% of the time. His curveball and changeup are all over the place, so I would expect that he doesn’t rely as heavily on those tonight. One of the nice thing about Heaney is that he also likes to give up home runs, so if the weather is right and the White Sox exercise plate discipline, we may be treated to an offensive showcase (“plate discipline” is a key here, because we really need to exercise some).

Keuchel has a lot better control than Heaney does, and after posting a 1.99 ERA in 2020 he’s looking to build on that heading into 2021. We know Keuchel is a fan of the sinker and cutter, giving him a few extra pitches over Heaney in his arsenal.

I’m pretty thankful that Mike Trout was shut down for most of last night, so I hope we can keep that going (sorry, Trout, you seem like a nice dude, but I want my team to win). I’m still ignoring the fact that we have Adam Eaton, though I am willing to admit that he’s better in the first game than Nomar Mazara was in the 60th of last season.

We’re getting the MLB debut of Andrew Vaughn — and in left field — and Yermín Mercedes at DH. Will this lineup experiment work? Who knows. Let’s find out!