Gamethread: White Sox at Tigers

Happy Saturday! Today for Game 2 of 162, the Chicago White Sox will play the Detroit Tigers and look for redemption after yesterday’s ugliness. It was a chaotic day and game overall, but now that the Opening Day hype has died down, hopefully the South Siders can come out and show the fans what they’ve been waiting for.

Earlier today, Lucas Giolito headed to the IL due to an oblique strain. Although it’s not ideal, Tony La Russa hopes that his ace will only miss two starts. In the meantime, the rest of the starting rotation needs to step it up big time in the games they are pitching. Who’s better to do so than Dylan Cease, against the Tigers?

You might have caught it on the broadcast yesterday, but Cease has phenomenal numbers against the Tigers. In his career, he is 11-0 with a 1.82 ERA. He’s also coming off of a solid Cactus League season, starting two games and ending with a 1.29 ERA, one earned run, and eight strikeouts. Cease’s development has been great to watch, and now the sky's the limit for him if he can work on getting his walk rate and pitches down.

Casey Mize will take the bump today for the Tigers, and he’s the anti-Cease: 0-6 lifetime against the South Siders. We saw a decent amount of him last year and took advantage, so hopefully today the team can do the same. The former No. 1 pick in 2018 started three games in spring training and left with a 2.89 ERA, nine hits and 10 strikeouts in 9 ¹⁄₃ innings pitched. Mize does use his fastball the most, but only at 29.1% of the time. He also has a slider, sinker, split finger, and curveball.

AJ Pollock will continue to lead it off during Tim Anderson’s absence, followed by Luis Robert and José Abreu. Yasmani Grandal and Eloy Jiménez will take the field again, followed by Gavin Sheets at DH making his season debut, as Andrew Vaughn gets the day off. Leury García is back at shortstop and Josh Harrison and Jake Burger will end the lineup.

Game time is at 12:10 p.m. CT on NBCSCHI with Jason and Steve. Listen in on ESPN 1000. Let’s get our first win of the season!