The Major League Baseball season continues its long grind through the month of July. The MLB All-Star Game is quickly approaching, and the starters for the game will be announced shortly. After that, the MLB trade deadline rolls through.
On Thursday, however, the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox only have to worry about each other. The Tigers come into Chicago for an American League Central showdown over the next three games.
The Tigers' injury issues have been well documented for a while now. And it's due to those injuries that the Tigers right-hander Beau Briske has found as much major league action as he has in 2022.
Briske will take the ball on Thursday sporting an unfavorable 1-6 record on the season. He's pitched to a 4.54 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 69.1 IP this season.
The White Sox turn to a right-hander of their own in Dylan Cease. Cease has had a respectable 2022 campaign thus far. He is 7-3 with a 2.51 ERA and 125 strikeouts in 86 innings pitched this year.
The White Sox come into this matchup with a bit of energy and confidence. Chicago defeated the Central division-leading Minnesota Twins 9-8 in 10 innings.
On the strength of an impressive performance from returning star Eloy Jimenez, the White Sox tied the game on five separate occasions before a Leury Garcia single won the game.
“I was dancing in the locker room,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “Pulled something, too.”
“Unfortunately, things haven’t gone our way for most of the season, but we haven’t stopped working,” Garcia said. “We’ve been working hard, and today was a good day for us.”
While the White Sox were staying alive in Chicago, the Tigers were showing signs of finally coming to life. After a surprising 77-win season last year, it seemed as if the Tigers would take the next step in their rebuild this year.
However, it hasn't worked out that way. The Tigers have struggled mightily this season and look closer to losing 100 games than they do matching last year's win total.
Despite that, the Tigers' anemic offense has exploded. Detroit completed a four-game sweep of the Cleveland Guardians in Detroit on Wednesday.
Detroit scored four or more runs in each of those games, a rare sight for the team this season. In the last two games, Detroit scored eight and 11 runs respectively.
The question becomes whether the Tigers can continue their scoring ways. They very well may, but expect a setback against the White Sox on Thursday.
Chicago doesn't perform particularly well at home, but the Tigers have the worst record away from home across all of baseball. While Detroit can take over if this becomes a bullpen game, Cease is good enough to shut down this offense. Expect the White Sox to come out victorious.
