Series preview: White Sox @ Rangers

April 30, 6:52 PMChicago White Sox ExaminerJJ Stankevitz

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Ian Kinsler leads the Rangers with seven home runs this year.

7:05 pm Friday, May 1: Mark Buehrle vs. Scott Feldman

Feldman pitched the ball pretty well in his only start of the year, throwing 5.0 innings while allowing one earned run against Baltimore April 25. Outside of an at-bat against Aubrey Huff, Feldman threw primarily fastballs and sinkers in the first three innings before going to a lot more offspeed pitches in the fourth—the inning in which he gave up his only run. He went back to mainly fastballs and sinkers in the fifth and didn't allow a run in that inning, but was pulled after the fifth in favor of highly-touted rookie Derek Holland, who fired three innings in relief of Feldman, only allowing one earned run.

Feldman made one start against the White Sox in 2008, throwing 6.0 innings while allowing one earned run July 21 in Chicago. Just from looking at a cross-section of Feldman's starts (including his start against Baltimore this year and the start against the Sox last year, along with this Sept. 13, 2008 start against Oakland), it seems like he has a tendency to throw a ton of fastballs to righties but tinker around with offspeed pitches more frequently against lefties.

This approach hasn't been all that successful for Feldman in his career. Over the last three years, lefties (.874 OPS) have been far better than righties (.748 OPS) against Feldman—and that trend has continued in a small sample size this year, as lefties have been mashing the ball (1.059 OPS) compared to righties (.683 OPS).

With the news (via Joe Cowley's legendary twitter updates) that Jim Thome and Chris Getz have been cleared to play and that Scott Podsednik has been called up (there's been no official announcement, but he flew to Dallas and I'd have to wager it wasn't for a vacation), the Sox will have a much more left-handed heavy lineup than they have had recently. Despite the terrible defense, giving the switch-hitting Wilson Betemit (The goggles! They do nothing! h/t to Soxmachine for that) a start at third over the right-handed Josh Fields, who still has struggled to hit fastballs this year.

What might throw a wrench in the Sox' gameplan Friday would be the appearance of Holland, who hasn't pitched since Feldman last started and could be ready to throw as many innings as needed in relief of Feldman, who began the year in the bullpen and presumably will work his way into throwing longer starts. Holland has electric stuff, featuring the typical young, hard-thrower combination: a mid-to-upper 90's fastball, a sharp slider, and a changeup that he doesn't throw that often. If the Sox go with a left-handed heavy lineup, it'll be neutralized by the left-handed Holland if the Rangers choose to bring him for two, three, four innings after Feldman.

Plus, the Sox have never faced Holland—and if the lineup's performance against Brad Bergesen and Chris Jakubauskas are the continuance of a trend that's been present for seemingly years now, that's a very good sign for Texas.

The Sox' strategy in this game probably should still be to overload the lineup with lefties and try to get to Feldman early. Taking an early lead will be key, because if Holland comes in and throws like he did in his first two appearances of the year, the Sox offense won't be able to get anything off the 22-year-old.

Buehrle has fared very well against the Rangers in the last two years, throwing 7.1 innings of one-run ball on July 22, 2008, and of course, 9.0 innings of no-hit ball on April 18, 2007. However, his start Friday will be his first start at the Ballpark in Arlington/Ameriquest Field/Rangers Ballpark since 2006, and with the way balls have been flying out there this year, Buehrle will have to keep the ball down and throw inside with consistency if he's going to have success. In his April 25 start against Toronto, Buehrle wasn't able to do that as well, allowing nine fly balls to six ground balls—but getting away with it, only allowing two earned runs over six innings. If he's allowing more fly balls than ground balls on Friday, chances are he's going to allow a whole lot more runs, too.

7:05 pm Saturday, May 2: Jose Contreras vs. Brandon McCarthy

McCarthy's start Saturday night will be his first career start against his former team, so maybe there will be some added incentive for him to pitch better. However, he's been consistently mediocre this year, allowing 3, 3, 3, and 4 earned runs in his four starts—none of which have lasted more than six innings. In every one of those starts, he has allowed at least three more fly balls than ground balls, too. When 15 percent of those fly balls go for home runs, it's a recipe for disaster—his 2.45 HR/9 is fourth-worst in baseball. Want to keep piling on McCarthy? Sure you do. His 7.13 FIP is second-worst in baseball, so if you believe that pitchers with FIPs well higher than their ERAs have been lucky, then McCarthy has actually been incredibly lucky to hold a 5.32 ERA through four starts.

For McCarthy to have success, he has to get hitters to chase his big 12-6 curveball—but that really hasn't happened this year, as hitters are only swinging at 22.2 percent of the pitches McCarthy throws out of the strike zone. If hitters are generally laying off McCarthy's curveball, he becomes a fastball-changeup pitcher who is pretty easy to hit.

On top of that, McCarthy has been walking far too many batters this year. His 4.91 BB/9 is exactly the same as another right-hander with a great 12-6 curveball who has struggled this year—Gavin Floyd.

If McCarthy can't throw his curveball for strikes or get batters to chase it, is walking a ton of batters, and is giving up a lot of fly balls, the Sox should have absolutely no problem scoring runs while he's on the mound. The key to the start for McCarthy is his curveball—if he's throwing that for strikes, he likely won't walk a whole lot of batters and might even get a few more ground balls.

Contreras finally put together a good start his last time out against Toronto April 26, going seven innings while allowing three earned runs on eight hits, one walk, and two strikeouts. He threw his forkball better than he had earlier in the year, but he still didn't throw it enough enough consistency to pitch like the Contreras of old.

It's still going to a process to get Contreras back to full strength—and if that happens at all, it's going to mean he's throwing his forkball for strikes a lot more than he has so far this year.

7:05 pm Sunday, May 3: John Danks vs. Matt Harrison

Harrison is coming off his best start of the year, a seven-inning, four-run effort against the Orioles April 27. That's nothing spectacular, but Harrison hasn't been all that great this year. He's walking far too many batters—nearly five per nine innings—for a guy who doesn't have great strikeout numbers (his K/BB this year is 0.75...that's not good). On top of that, he's giving up a ton of hits—33 in 21.2 IP—which explains his Horacio Ramirez-esque 2.08 WHIP.

However, there have been some encouraging signs in Harrison's last two start, at least in the walk department. After walking nine batters in his first two starts, Harrison has only walked three in his last two—but, unfortunately for Harrison, he's allowed 16 hits in 11 innings over those two outings.

In one start against the White Sox last year, Harrison allowed five earned runs on seven hits and two walks in 2.2 innings pitched in Arlington.

Another quick note on Harrison: three of his four starts this year have come on the road. His only start at Rangers Ballpark came April 17, when he allowed six earned runs—the most he's allowed all year—in five innings of work.

Thinking out loud here, it seems like Harrison would greatly benefit from adding a cut fastball so he could better bust hitters inside. His stuff is similar to Mark Buehrle's in that he doesn't have a blazing fastball, but features a changeup, curveball, and slider. The difference is that Buehrle throws a cutter while Harrison does not—and while that's far from the only reason why Buehrle is the better pitcher, it certainly couldn't hurt if Harrison added another pitch that he could use to bust hitters inside.

Danks is coming off his worst start of the year in which he allowed five earned runs over four innings in the back end of a doubleheader against Seattle April 28. Prior to that start, Danks had allowed just two earned runs in 19.0 innings.

He never had the feel for his changeup on Monday, as he only threw the pitch eight times—with most of the pitches either ending up being balls or put in play for runs. That's the pitch he's going to have to be confident with if he's going to shut down this powerful Rangers lineup.

Outlook

After the year Josh Hamilton had last year, it seems odd to say that the Rangers really won't miss him over the weekend—but given his early-season struggles and Andruw Jones' resurgence, they probably won't. This Texas offense is very, very good (especially at home), as six players—Jones, Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, Nelson Cruz, Marlon Byrd, and Hank Blalock—will bring an OPS over .800 into the series. Kinsler has been unconscious at the plate, leading the Rangers with seven home runs while posting a slugging percentage of .656. Remember when second baseman were supposed to be light-hitting?

Frank Francisco has not allowed a run in 10.2 innings out of the Rangers' bullpen and is 6/6 in save opportunities—if the White Sox go into the ninth inning down a run or two, it's probably game over. However, getting to Francisco has been a difficult task for the Rangers' bullpen (and starting rotation, for that matter), so the White Sox should have plenty of opportunities to score runs.

Texas' defense was the worst in baseball according to UZR in 2008, costing the team 51.7 runs over the course of the season and compounding the pitching problems that plagued the team. This year, though, Texas has a top five defense (+6.5 UZR) thanks to some spectacular defense by Cruz, Chris Davis, and Kinsler. However, the left side of the Rangers' infield has been pretty bad defensively, as Young and Elvis Andrus have combined for a -4.4 UZR so far this year at third base and shortstop, respectively.

Just looking at the pitching matchups, the Sox should easily take two of three and could have a legitimate chance to earn their first series sweep of the year, but at Rangers Ballpark, anything can happen.