Gamethread: White Sox at Athletics

Things are so bad for the White Sox that a loss today would mean a series loss to the worst team in baseball. We have reached the point in the season where I am tuning in for one reason: To watch Luis Robert Jr. at-bats.

Today’s starting pitcher will attempt to put a Cease to a series loss. Dylan Cease is making his 18th start of the year, and today might be the day his ERA dips back below four. He is coming off a stellar month of June where he posted a 2.20 ERA with 42 strikeouts and 10 walks. He gave up no more than two runs in each of his five starts last month, and went at least six innings in three of them. This was exactly the type of month Cease needed after his 1-2, 5.57 ERA May.

Facing off against the dominant righthander is a not-so-dominant lefthander, Kyle Muller. The starter is 1-4 this season with an 8.04 ERA in 10 starts. He has not gone more than 5 2⁄3 innings in any of his outings, and has given up five or more earned runs in six of those starts. The southpaw uses a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup. In two-strike counts, Muller is likely to throw a fastball to right-handed hitters and a slider to lefthanders.

Pedro Grifol continues to bat Tim Anderson in the 2-spot even after he was responsible for leaving six runners on base last night, going 0-for-5 with four strikeouts. Yasmani Grandal, who went 0-for-4 with a walk last night, is in the lineup at DH. Seby Zavala is behind the dish for him. Good thing Pedro has an extra catcher on the bench, Carlos Pérez, just in case. Former A Elvis Andrus gets the day off, and turns over second base duties to Zach Remillard. The rest of the lineup is below.

Mark Kotsay lines his 22-62 team up below.

Today’s game will start at 3:07 p.m. CST. You can watch on NBC Sports Chicago or listen on ESPN 1000.

You may have noticed, no tweet embeds for the lineups. Well, due to new limitations on Twitter, there will be no Bird App Recap. We will see you postgame for the recap and Six Pack!