Not taking him likely. I know he’s good when healthy but he’s not healthy. He’s not going more than 4 innings because of said health. Also, the first instance of trouble and La Russa is firing the pen up. It’s an elimination game. The wind is a problem today too and he doesn’t want him to face the Astros batters more than twice. Could he have a great game? Sure, why not. It’s baseball. But I’m leaning towards Astros knocking him around.
Yeah I don’t get why Astros fans are upset about starting Lance here in game 4. It’s the right move. Someone posted earlier in the thread a video of some White Sox podcast with Ozzie Guillen and their color commenter guys. They were pissed La Russa didn’t go to their best relievers after they were up in game 2. They were saying when you get a lead like that you gotta go to your best to hold the lead. You can’t play for tomorrow. It’s the same with us and game 4. You can’t play for tomorrow, you gotta win today. If Lance is on full rest, it’s a no brainer.
He pitched 5 innings in 5 of the 6 starts he made in August / September. He's on more rest than he had in any of those. Looking at his pitch counts, he can probably go about 80 pitches. If he is pitching efficiently and stays in the strike zone he can definitely go 5 innings. I agree the Sox are only hoping to get 3 or 4 innings out of him and will pull him quickly if he's struggling.
It may not be the 100% optimized batting order, but with this lineup he's fine in the 7th spot. No need to change anything, particularly if he's comfortable there: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kyle-tucker-is-hitting-seventh-and-thats-fine/
I'm a little worried because facing the same good hitting lineup in back to back starts if very different than anything that happens in the regular season. We always talk about only going through the line up a few times, but in back to back starts versus the same team that kind of goes out the window. It is almost harder to match a great first start in a series than to "redeem" yourself in the 2nd start. If anything today, Lance has to be even better today than in Game 1 with his accuracy and his pitching strategy to keep the WS off balance. Not saying I don't think he can do it or that Astros should pitch Urquidy, but anyone (especially Dusty) not going into the game with the series of Plan B, C, D, E, etc. is foolish.
Plan B is pitch your number #2 starter in Game 5 and have your #4 ready for either if needed. Look at this way - you have two games to win one. Do you want to pitch your #1 and #2 aligned with their home/road splits or do you want to pitch your #4 and #1 opposite of their home/road splits?
Altuve 790 OPS vs Leftys Altuve 862 OPS vs Rightys Brantley 575 OPS vs Leftys Brantley 924 OPS vs Rightys Bregman 839 OPS vs Leftys Bregman 744 OPS vs Rightys Alvarez 881 OPS vs Leftys Alvarez 874 OPS vs Rightys Correa 844 OPS vs Leftys Correa 852 OPS vs Rightys Gurriel 925 OPS vs Leftys Gurriel 805 OPS vs Rightys Tucker 910 OPS vs Leftys Tucker 920 OPS vs Rightys Meyers 899 OPS vs Leftys Meyers 676 OPS vs Rightys Maldenado 665 OPS vs Leftys Maldonado 533 OPS vs Rightys Bench McCormick 830 OPS vs Leftys McCormick 742 OPS vs Rightys Diaz 789 OPS vs Leftys Diaz 686 OPS vs Rightys Siri 1078 OPS vs Leftys Siri 893 OPS vs Rightys Castro 561 OPS vs Leftys Castro 917 OPS vs Rightys Stubbs 452 OPS vs Leftys Stubbs 457 OPS vs Rightys Tucker at 2 and Brantley at 7 makes a lot more sense. Hopefully we've knocked Rodon out of the game by the 7th batter.
