Game Preview: Oakland Two – The Oaklanding

Evidently Sonny Gray is still not healthy enough to pitch, which means that former White Sox prospect Chris Bassitt will take the mound for the A’s against Jose Quintana.  Bassitt’s a fun player, given that he’s an underdog with a funky delivery paired with decent velocity.  That said, his ceiling is that of a fourth starter, as his secondary stuff is unremarkable, and the White Sox will enjoy a comfortable edge at the starting pitcher position again this evening.

As Ethan pointed out, the White Sox saw most of Oakland’s bullpen already last night, as Rich Hill couldn’t get out of the third inning, the A’s couldn’t get a lead, yet they managed to keep the game close enough to merit deploying some of their significant relief quality.  Moreover, given Gray’s illness and Felix Doubront’s injury in his last Spring Training outing, Oakland was ill-positioned to tap into the back end of their rotation to bail out Hill.  By contrast, White Sox pitchers only needed 133 total pitches to make it through Opening Day.

White Sox lineup:

1. Adam Eaton – CF

2. Jimmy Rollins – SS

3. Jose Abreu – 1B

4. Todd Frazier – 3B

5. Melky Cabrera – LF

6. Avisail Garcia – DH

7. Brett Lawrie – 2B

8. Alex Avila – C

9. Austin Jackson – CF

Athletics lineup:

1. Coco Crisp – CF

2. Jed Lowrie – 2B

3. Josh Reddick – RF

4. Danny Valencia – 3B

5. Khris Davis – LF

6. Billy Butler – DH

7. Josh Phegley – C

8. Yonder Alonso – 1B

9.  Marcus Semien – SS

Although Danny Valencia and Josh Reddick have profoundly different feelings about facing left-handed pitching, Jose Quintana doesn’t seem to give a fig for the handedness of his opposition, as his platoon split is non-existent (.255 TAv v. LHB, .256 TAv v. RHB).

Bob Melvin is deploying Phegley for platoon reasons, however, he is oddly not being consistent in that choice, opting for the left-handed Alonso instead of Mark Canha at first.  Indeed, one can argue that Canha profiles better as the everyday starter at first period, let alone against southpaws.

Crisp should be a pretty significant downgrade defensively from Billy Burns in center, so perhaps that is something that the White Sox offense will be able to exploit tonight.

Meanwhile, Robin Ventura is now 2-for2 in terms of batting Rollins second.  Avila will also make his debut a day later than originally anticipated, as he was pulled when Gray was pulled for a lefty at the last minute yesterday.