Series preview: White Sox at Indians (July 11-July 13)

The Tribe complete the first half of the season and this ten-game home stand with three against the hated White Sox.

• Friday's game is at 7:05 PM (Noesi vs. Kluber) [MLB.tv free game of the day]
• Saturday's game is at 3:05 PM (Carroll vs. McAllister)
• Sunday's game is at 1:05 PM (Danks vs. Bauer) [WGN telecast]

The All Star break is the early part of next week and the Indians do not return to action until Friday night. That kicks off an all AL Central road trip to visit the Tigers and Twins for three games each before finishing up with four with the Royals.

Division Watch: Tigers at Royals, Twins at Rockies.

Team in a Box

The Tribe haven't seen the White Sox since late May, when we were swept in a three game set at Comiskey. For the season, the Indians are just 3-7 against their longtime rivals, but the teams have each scored 46 runs in those 10 games.

The Sox' hot April has kept them in the top five in runs, home runs and slugging. But lately they have struggled mightily. In the past two weeks they are hitting 219/278/415 as a team. The lone bright spot in that two weeks are the 17 home runs. If Sale wasn't on this staff, they'd likely be at the bottom of the AL in almost every category. As it is, they are in the bottom third in most of them. And defensively, they are thirteenth as well.

Projected Roster

*Includes stats with Blue Jays

Rookie of the Year shoo-in Abreu is as dangerous as ever. He has 28 dingers and 72 RBI already. Dunn is still doing his all or nothing thing and Gillaspie has been hot since his return from the DL. Eaton has fared better than I thought he would, so kudos to him. The definite black hole in the lineup is the catching spot, so naturally they'll will hit two homers as drive in six this weekend.

In the ten games between the teams, Gillespie has worn out the Tribe staff with a 478/552/652 line. In fact, Beckham, Ramirez, Abreu, Viciedo, Eaton and Dunn all have an 800 or better OPS against the Tribe. Abreu has 4 homers against us already too.

Projected Staff

Thankfully the scheduling gods have us missing two thirds of the lefty triumvirate (including Chris Sale) and the one that we do face is the worst of the three, Danks. The Tribe have ripped him in two starts, with 11 runs on 16 hits, including 3 home runs. The series-opening starter for Chicago is Noesi. He was great in his lone game against the Indians, 1 run on 5 hits in 7.1 innings, with 5 strikeouts. Carroll was in the rotation in early May, then out of it, and now back in. He was tagged for 7 runs two starts ago, but  he 1-hit the Red Sox on Tuesday. He has 9 shutout innings against the Tribe this year too.

With Matt Lindstrom still mending, Belisario has been the closer in name only as he has two losses and two holds the past week and a half. Petricka got the two most recent saves out of the pen. Lefty Scott Downs was released on July 3, leaving Surkamp as the only southpaw at Ronin Ventura's disposal. I expect he'll get a workout this weekend.

On the Shelf

• RF Avisail Garcia [60 day DL], possible September return
• CL Matt Lindstrom [15 day DL], possible August return
• SP Felipe Paulino [15 day DL], no timetable for return
• RP Nate Jones [15 day DL] , possible August return

Almanac

*Does not include 2014 stats

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