Rays and White Sox Battle in Playoff Type Atmosphere

Welcome back Evan Longoria. After struggling since mid May, Evan came back to life against the Kansas City Royals. Although it wasn't pretty, the Rays mustered three come back wins and got solid pitching performances from everyone but James Shields. 

The Sox are coming off of winning two of three against the Orioles, and Jose Contreras continued to struggle.

Ever since coming back to the team Scott Posednik has been a lightning rod at the top of their lineup, hitting .307 and giving Chicago speed, where it is severely lacking. Also the Sox are getting good play from their rookie, Gordan Beckham, who continues to improve throughout the year. 

Chicago took three of four from Tampa at the Trop in early April when Tampa was playing through perhaps its worse stretch of baseball. If Tampa is going to have any success this week against Chicago they will have to keep Chicago in the ballpark, especially Jermaine Dye (hitting .395 with 6 HRs in his last 22 games) and hit left handed pitching, especially Mark Buehrle, whom the Rays have had moderate success against.

Here are the pitching matchups for the week:

Price (3-3 4.70) vs. Floyd (7-6 4.44)

Will the real David Price please stand up? Price is either phenomenal or dismal. So far this year he has out-pitched Roy Halladay and CC Sabathia, but has failed to go five innings four times in nine starts. However, his outing against Toronto was probably his best of the year.

The Sox have won six of Floyd's last eight starts, and his ERA has fallen significantly after his terrible May. However, he’s given up five earned runs in his last two starts.

Niemann (8-4 3.73) vs. Richard (3-3 5.42)

Jeff Niemann has been the second best surprise this year for the Rays, behind Zobrist, and has looked excellent of late. In his last 11 starts he has only given up more than three runs once, and has also pitched two complete game shutouts.

Richard hasn’t fared well, only pitching 33 innings in his last eight starts, giving up 29 runs. If the Rays get on him quick they could hurt the bullpen significantly.

Shields (6-6 3.75) vs. Danks (8-6 3.98)

Coming off perhaps his worst start, Shields has still been one of the most consistent pitchers for the Rays all year. It was the third time he had failed to go six innings in a start all year.  Although, he got roughed up against the White Sox in his first meeting.

Danks’ last two starts haven’t been too great but overall he has been pretty consistent. Being a lefty will help against the Rays and his first outing proved that, though he will need to cut down on the walks.

Kazmir (4-5 6.62) vs. Buehrle (10-3 3.52)

A battle of prominent lefties, and Kazmir looks to carry momentum from the Royals start. He looked excellent with a fastball that hit 93-95 consistently and also went six innings. He still is walking too many though. In the last three years he has a 3.34 ERA against the White Sox.

Buehrle has looked excellent all year, although he hasn’t pitched as well in June or July as he did in April and May. However, with a excellent second half he could be in the Cy Young debate.

Predictions

The Sox have not fared well against the East (7-10) and the Rays are a different team then the beginning of the year, but so are the Sox. Both teams are playing really well, and I see a 2-2 split in this series.

The Rays have struggled to hit of late, but will always make the pitcher work.  The Sox rely on the long ball and have patient hitters which could spell trouble for Price. The pitching matchups of Danks-Shields and Kazmir-Buehrle should be a lot of fun to watch.

Despite BJ’s hot June, he has fallen off again in July only hitting .236. He is going to have to pick it up if the Rays want any shot of keeping pace with the Red Sox and Yankees. Also Longoria is going to have to keep up the production as he did against the Royals.

This will be a fun series to watch, and even though there will be good pitching I expect to see quite a few home runs.