Gamethread: White Sox at Twins

The ruminations over Yermín Mercedes’ massive home run last night will continue through the day, as it is all but certain that his first at-bat will result in a hit by pitch. However, that shouldn’t overshadow the fact that the White Sox have flat-out spanked the Twins in every phase of the game this year.

With Jose Abreu still out, Andrew Vaughn will take over first base, while Jake Lamb comes in to play left field and bat second. Leury García will continue to fill in at center field while batting out of the eighth spot. Taking the mound is Lance Lynn, who just faced this Twins lineup five days ago. Although he has yet to go past five innings in any of his three starts after returning from injury, he has been very effective in each game and looks to continue that tonight.

For the Minnesota Twins, they scratched Michael Pineda at the last minute to bring up Bailey Ober for the start. With a massive 6-foot-9 and 260-pound frame, Ober has done relatively well in his limited minor league experience, most recently posting a 1.29 ERA in two starts at AAA St. Paul this season. Despite his size, Ober relies on his control instead of overpowering stuff— his fastball sits in the low 90s, but he only walked nine batters in 78 innings of work in 2019. The Twins lineup is largely the same, but without Willians Astudillo, who is certainly being stretched out as a starter based on his stellar relief performance last night.

Game time is at 6:40 on NBC Sports Chicago or MLB.TV.