Game Thread: White Sox (8-14) at Diamondbacks (13-9)

The White Sox snapped their series drought over the weekend, taking two of three from the Athletics for their first series win since early April against the Blue Jays. They now head out to the desert to take on the Arizona Diamondbacks for a three-game set. In some good news, the South Siders are shockingly not in last place in the AL Central, and officially do NOT have the worst run differential in the MLB — thank you, Kansas City, for both.

On top of that, two of their prospects were named players of the week in their respective leagues (Colby Shelton and Braden Montgomery), and left-handed pitching prospect Noah Schultz bounced back in his second start with five solid innings on Sunday, so not all is bad.

Righthander Sean Burke is making his third start (fourth appearance) of the season, and despite a rocky outing last week against the Rays, he’s been fairly solid overall this month, with a 3.86 ERA in three games (16 1/3 innings). Though he’s sitting at a cumulative 4.43 ERA on the year, his 3.77 FIP highlights that the defense could be impacting his expected performance, which wouldn’t be all that surprising considering the Sox rank 26th in fielding run value this season, according to Statcast. Burke also doesn’t walk an absurd amount of batters, ranking in the 73rd percentile for walk rate (6.9%), so if the team were more solid behind him, he might have better numbers.

Burke will face some tough D-backs hitters with Ketel Marte, Corbin Carroll, and Geraldo Perdomo already packing a punch of power at the top of the order. Though he is batting eighth, Ildemaro Vargas has had a hot start to the season, slashing .368/.390/.596 with a .986 OPS with five doubles so far.

Starting lineup for the D-backs:

For Arizona, righthander Merrill Kelly will take the mound, making his second start of the season after beginning the year on the IL. Kelly gave up two runs on five hits, including a homer, across 5 1/3 innings in his first outing, though shaky command led to four walks against three strikeouts. In 32 starts last season, he posted a 3.52 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP, and he tends to lean towards his cutter and changeup to shut down an at-bat.

For whatever reason, Andrew Benintendi is leading it off for the White Sox. However, the following three are the hot core in the lineup that are hopefully going to remain more consistent to help turn things around: Munetaka Murakami, Miguel Vargas, and Colson Montgomery. And honestly, don’t leave out Everson Pereira batting fifth because after a few horrific at-bats to start the season, he has really turned it around and has been leading the Chicago offense alongside Murakami.

In the last week, Mune ranks sixth in MLB in OPS (1.311) and slugging percentage (.833), and has mashed three homers, driven in seven runs, and walked five times. Montgomery and Vargas have also mashed two bombs apiece in that same time frame, and Montgomery’s 1.117 OPS in his last five games certainly looks a lot better than a couple of weeks ago.

Starting lineup for the White Sox:

The first pitch on the West Coast is later, at 8:40 p.m. CT. You can tune in at the usual locations: on TV at CHSN or on the radio at ESPN Chicago AM 1000. Back-to-back series wins, anyone?