Pregame notes: Losing streak putting a crimp in second half narrative

A lot of the second half offensive numbers will still show the White Sox as resurgent since the All-Star break, as their 120 wRC+ as a team is still the fourth-best mark in baseball over that span.

But they've been outscored 40-23 over their ongoing six-game skid, and the recent scourge of short outings from starting pitchers, where no one has completed six innings since the losing began, prompted a prototypical shuffling of bullpen arms.

"One of those situations where it's not performance-based, both of those guys earned more opportunity here," Will Venable said of sending out Hudson and González. "Three-straight starts where we were a little short and asked a lot of our bullpen and just to get through today and the foreseeable future we had to get some fresh arms."

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The White Sox rotation is unsettled for the series against the Tigers, other than that Shane Smith is listed to start the Wednesday finale. That would constitute an extra day of rest for Smith, but also limits their options for the other two days.

Tyler Alexander is set to fill in for Jonathan Cannon for one game, but Aaron Civale won't be on regular rest until Wednesday. The Sox sound newly uncertain that Martín Pérez will need a third rehab assignment, as the veteran left-hander is back in Chicago and Venable said he'll be reassessed after throwing a bullpen at Rate Field. But even if he pitched on regular rest from his Friday rehab outing, he would not be ready until, again, Wednesday. I know what you're thinking and already looked it up--Mike Clevinger just pitched on Saturday.

They're a professional baseball team and they'll figure it out, and since they're 33 games under .500 in August, whatever they go with probably won't shake whatever remains of the world order. Or it's a misprint and Smith is starting Tuesday. In any case, Mike Vasil will probably be involved.

Pérez is still kind of just thrilled that he got through his flexor injury without needing surgery.

"It was a rollercoaster of emotions there," Venable said. "The first response and talking to him and with his experience having done the elbow before, it was emotional and it was upsetting. So for him to come all this way and be able to fight his way back and be back out on the field and just moments away from a potential outing again in the big leagues is really cool."

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Miguel Vargas (left oblique strain) took ground balls pregame and Chase Meidroth (right thumb contusion) ran on the field under the watch of trainers. Both could start swinging a bat on Monday.

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Venable has used the term "9-on-1 offense" a few times in the past couple of weeks and we're in the business of building a glossary for him. Or it would be more accurate to say, forcing him to build a glossary for himself.

"Each guy's going to have a different approach," Venable began. "But [it's] the collective commitment to one thing for that day. We might have a different way of going about it. Let's say we're facing [Framber] Valdez and we know he's got the really good sinker, guys might have a different way of going about [facing] him, but a 9-on-1 approach would be everyone selling out to do whatever they can to get underneath the sinker. We do that from time to time, when we have the opportunity to have a collective goal. It's nice to have that approach going into a game, where you have every guy, 9-on-1, that can go out there and know we're all committed to one thing to beat the opponent."

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This game is being carried on WGN radio because of the Bears preseason broadcast.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Guardians

TV: CHSN

Radio: WGN 720 AM, WRTO 1200 AM

Lineups: