After taking the first two games of the series by a combined score of 13-5, the Jays look to sweep the White Sox tonight. Behind the efforts of veteran starters Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow, who authored last night's shutout gem, the Jays seem to have cooled off the formerly en fuego Pale Hose offence. Hopefully youngster Henderson Alvarez can put up a similar effort. Alvarez, as we all know, has done a nice job against righthanded hitters but has really struggled against lefties -- kind of surprising, given that his changeup was supposed to be his best secondary offering. Hopefully he doesn't struggle tonight against a fairly lefty-heavy lineup. He might need to be at his best because runs could be at a premium against former Senior Circuit Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy, who has started the season quite well (6-1, 3.05 ERA).
After battling injuries, Peavy seems to have reinvented himself in the Shaun Marcum mould and has relied more heavily on his secondary offerings. Though he isn't K-ing a batter an inning any more, so far in 2012 he's still gotten plenty of strikeouts (8.0 K/9) and been quite stingy with the free passes (1.8 BB/9). He's done a nice job avoiding the gopher ball (0.8 HR/9), though given his batted ball profile (32% grounder-rate, 47% fly-rate, 14% linedrive-rate), that could change pretty quickly. If so, Peavy's numbers could take a nose-dive pretty quickly -- his FIP, at 3.15 is right in line with what you'd predict, but his xFIP is 3.78 and, given the hitter-friendly confines of U.S. Cellular Field, xFIP could be underpredicting his HR/fly-rate.
Kelly's back in the cleanup spot and DH'ing tonight, with Cooper getting the start at first and Omar Vizquel batting 8th. Arencibia has been dropped from 4th to 7th.
Blue Jays | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawrie, B, 3B | ||||||||
| Rasmus, C, CF | ||||||||
| Bautista, J, RF | ||||||||
| Johnson, K, DH | ||||||||
| Cooper, D, 1B | ||||||||
| Escobar, Y, SS | ||||||||
| Arencibia, J, C | ||||||||
| Vizquel, O, 2B | ||||||||
| Davis, R, LF | ||||||||
| White Sox | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Aza, A, CF | ||||||||
| Beckham, G, 2B | ||||||||
| Dunn, A, 1B | ||||||||
| Konerko, P, DH | ||||||||
| Rios, A, RF | ||||||||
| Pierzynski, A, C | ||||||||
| Viciedo, D, LF | ||||||||
| Ramirez, A, SS | ||||||||
| Hudson, O, 3B | ||||||||
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