Gamethread: Tigers at White Sox

Happy Sunday! It’s been a beautiful weekend for baseball, with some beautiful (or not so beautiful) wins, and the Chicago White Sox will look to sweep the Detroit Tigers this afternoon with Michael Kopech on the mound.

The team will face lefty Matthew Boyd, a veteran pitcher for the Tigers who they have historically hit hard. He played in Detroit for almost his entire career, until last season where he signed with the San Francisco Giants but never played due to surgery, and then was traded to the Seattle Mariners. In the offseason, he came right back to the Tigers, and now stands at 3-4 with a 5.96 ERA and 1.43 WHIP. His last outing was against the Texas Rangers where he had five hits, five runs, four walks, and five strikeouts. He relies on five pitches, using his fastball the most at 38.6%. He follows with his slider (28.9%), changeup (18%), curveball (8.2%), and sinker (6.3%).

Michael Kopech is back on the mound after a great month of May, but he is still trying to clean up his stats, as he is 3-5 with a 4.52 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. He had a stretch of terrific games, but his last outing against the Los Angeles Angels wasn’t the best, as he went just 4 1⁄3 innings pitched with five hits, four runs, two walks, and 10 strikeouts. Definitely an interesting stat line. It’s no doubt the stuff is there, as we see from the amount of strikeouts, but his main concerns now seem to be his control, which leads to walks and a high pitch count, and home runs, which usually happen on his fastball right down the middle. Hopefully he can learn from his last outing today and get back on track.

Tim Anderson (who feasts on Boyd) will lead it off, followed by Jake Burger in as the DH and Luis Robert Jr. back in center field. Eloy Jiménez is in right, Andrew Vaughn is at first, and Yasmani Grandal is catching. Clint Frazier is in left field as Romy González takes second and Elvis Andrus slides to third. It seems like Sunday has been a new designated Andrew Benintendi off-day or something, and Yoán Moncada gets the day off as well.

Game time is at 1:10 p.m. CT on NBCSCHI and you can listen at ESPN 1000.