Gamethread: White Sox vs. Orioles

It is a beautiful spring day in Chicago, so if you choose not to stay inside to watch the White Sox this afternoon, I understand.

After last night’s pitching breakdown, the Chicago ball club is looking to bounce back. This starts with the starting pitcher this after, Michael Kopech. The righthander opened the season at Guaranteed Rate Field against the Giants, giving up seven runs on eight hits in 4 2⁄3 innings. Kopech bounced back on Sunday, April 9 with six innings of one-run ball against the Pirates. He was still tacked with the loss because, well, the offense decided it didn’t want to do anything.

Kopech has given up a lot of hard-hit balls to start the season and will look to rectify this against a challenging Orioles lineup. So far this season, Kopech has relied on his 4-seam fastball almost 53% of the time. This pitch is sitting at 95 mph, which is down from the 97 mph heat he was throwing in 2021.

Facing off against Kopech is right-handed pitcher Kyle Gibson. This is Gibson’s fourth start of the young season. The White Sox will look to give him his first loss of the season. In 18 1⁄3 innings of work, he has a 3.44 ERA, striking out 12 and walking four. The righthander has seven pitches in his arsenal, but only seems to be utilizing five of them consistently. Leading usage is an 81 mph sweeper, followed closely by a 91 mph sinker. If batters have two strikes on them, they can flip a coin between seeing a sweeper or a sinker. If they’re lucky, they might even see a changeup.

The White Sox will attempt to crack Gibson’s code this afternoon in the following order:

Behind the starter, Gibson, are these Birds:

First pitch is at 1:10 p.m. CST. As always, you can watch the broadcast on NBC Sports Chicago and listen in on ESPN-AM 1000. I’ll be back with both the game recap and Bird App postgame, with a Player to Be Named Later taking the Six Pack seat.