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First Pitch

Pregame notes: Latest best chance for the first sweep of the season

James Fegan/Sox Machine

PITTSBURGH -- This is the sixth time the White Sox have won the first two games of a series this season. Based on the headline and an understanding of our shared reality, you can deduce that they are 0-for-5 on completing three-game sweeps so far in 2025. But the clubhouse is as confident as ever.

"Vibes are high," said Adrian Houser postgame Saturday night, even after what was objectively his worst start in a White Sox uniform.

"The last two days have been really cool," said Shane Smith.

Smith was speaking with his left ankle wrapped up in tape, after rolling it during Thursday's workout. He was planning on playing catch on Sunday and expects to be throwing off a mound again this week, so there was nothing in his outlook that suggests he'll miss more than a minimum of 15 days on the injured list.

"If I had my pick, I'd like to see what it feels like in the next couple of days, but it's not up to me," Smith said. "It sucks to miss starts. Especially because I've spent so much time on the IL, or not the IL but I've missed a lot of games in my career. So this sucks, especially in the first year. You want to get the full workload, whatever that looks like. I want to go five innings or six innings every time and in the starts before this I wasn't. Hopefully that gives me a little room over the course of however many I have over the next year."

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At the risk of an extremely arbitrary endpoint, after securing 14 outs of scoreless baseball Saturday night the White Sox bullpen has a 2.74 ERA since June 19 (basically the past month). That's the lowest mark in the American League.

"Probably around a month or six weeks ago, it’s kind of been the same group for a longer chunk of time," said assistant pitching coach Matt Wise. "Most bullpens in the big leagues, it takes from opening day to the beginning of May to where, OK, this is our setup guy, this is our closer. We’ve floated a little bit with some other, new names. But those guys, their personalities lend to the success they have. They’ve all been really consistent, hard-working dudes."

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The White Sox under Will Venable have based their lineup around handedness pretty strictly, but in talking to Sox Machine supporters on Saturday night, it's even more striking to see how it affects Colson Montgomery.

Long-billed as the shortstop of the future, opposing left-handed starters have been cause for Montgomery to slide over to third base to accommodate that Lenyn Sosa's most palatable defensive position is second base, and Chase Meidroth's arm is better suited to the middle of the diamond than third.

Moreover, while Montgomery starts against lefties more regularly than someone like Kyle Teel--a higher ranked prospect at this juncture--he's been shown to be one of the first options Venable might pinch hit for in a critical spot against a southpaw. There's a small collection of Sox hitters who thrive against lefties, but the degree to which they thrive is not subtle, and Venable is pretty proactive in deploying them when there's opportunity.

Edgar Quero - 178 wRC+

Luis Robert Jr. - 168

Mike Tauchman - 148

Andrew Benintendi - 142

Austin Slater - 141

No one else is over 100 wRC+ against lefties on the season

First pitch: White Sox at Pirates

TV: CHSN

Radio: ESPN 1000 AM

Lineups:

PiratesWhite Sox
Spencer Horwitz, 1B1Chase Meidroth, SS
Andrew McCutchen, DH2Austin Slater, RF
Bryan Reynolds, RF3Edgar Quero, C
Nick Gonzales, 2B4Miguel Vargas, 1B
Oneil Cruz, CF5Mike Tauchman, DH
Joey Bart, C6Luis Robert Jr., CF
Jack Suwinski, LF7Lenyn Sosa, 2B
Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B8Colson Montgomery, 3B
Isaih Kiner-Falefa, SS9Michael A. Taylor, LF
Andrew HeaneySPAaron Civale

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