Gamethread: White Sox at Rangers

Some late-breaking news, Liam Hendriks will miss the rest of the season after surgery that took place in Texas this morning.

The surgery will undoubtedly end Hendriks’ career in Chicago; certainly he is unlikely to see time on the field for the White Sox next year, given the near-certainly they will buy out the last season of the closer’s deal.

Meanwhile, as we turn toward tonight’s game, the new-look White Sox are here, and they don’t really look all that different. At least, they sure didn’t in yesterday’s 2-0 loss to the Rangers, in which Andrew Heaney utterly shut them down with a season-high 11 strikeouts over six innings, a far cry from the Sox lefty-mashing days of yore (2021), when they once lit him up for seven runs twice in a four-month span. Tonight, they’ll get another look at a team that made a speed run up the competitive ladder, in no small part thanks to a player the Sox probably wish they had right now. And they’ll get a look at Dylan Cease, who in spite of all the tantalizing imaginary trade packages I’m not unhappy to see take the ball for the Sox, as probably the only hurler in the locker room who can actually carry a team to a win. I’m not opposed to them having some good players next year.

A day ago from when I’m writing this, it seemed as if the odds were swinging into “unlikely” territory as to whether Cease would make his scheduled start tonight. But though the combination of Sig Mejdal’s refusal to part with Baltimore’s top prospect and Cease’s upcoming bobblehead day later this month was enough to keep the Cy Young runner-up with the team, at least for the next two months. Tonight, he’ll at least be pitching for a better arbitration case, if nothing else.

Cease has struggled to work deep into ballgames this year, throwing a pitch in the seventh inning in just three of his 22 starts, with one of those being on Opening Day. With the rest of the Sox pitching staff being held together by packing tape, a deep start tonight would still be mighty nice, even in the midst of a lost season.

Old friend Dane Dunning takes the hill for the Texas with a 3.28 ERA that can’t help but make Sox fans a little wistful, even if the Lance Lynn acquisition was probably a good one on the whole, notwithstanding the lack of support it got in terms of other roster moves. That being said, that ERA is largely a product of a torrid streak to start the season, when Dunning made eight appearances out of the bullpen before returning to the Rangers’ rotation and running a 2.06 mark. Since the start of June, though, his ERA is a pedestrian 4.17, and he’s been roughed up for a mark more than six in his last four appearances.

Just as he did in his short stint on the South Side, Dunning relies on a deep mix of pitches that are short on velocity but tall on bendiness. The only substantial change he’s made in Texas has been ditching his four-seamer in favor of a cutter as his primary fastball, which probably aligns better with his side-to-side, rather than up-and-down, approach to the strike zone. About half of the White Sox lineup has turned over since the last time he saw them, when he shut them down for seven one-hit innings on August 6 last year. Oscar Colás, Zach Remillard, and Seby Zavala are seeing Dunning for the first time, while Yoán Moncada drove in three of the nine runs the Sox put on him early in 2021.

Bruce Bochy comes into Game 2 with the Rangers’ B+ lineup, swapping out Mitch Garver for Sam Huff and subbing in Josh Smith for Ezequiel Durán.

My pick to click tonight is Dylan Cease, because he’s due to have one of those relatively rare games with zero or just one walk, and because if he’s got the good stuff going early, Pedro Grifol is probably going to let it ride, now that there’s no potential trade on the near horizon.

First pitch is at 7:05 p.m. CT, and the game will be broadcast on NBC Sports Chicago TV and ESPN AM 100 radio. See you in the comments.