Great news: Gavin Sheets is not (any longer) on the White Sox. He can’t hurt you anymore.
Bad news: If you’re reading this, you’re probably going to be watching some more Mariners baseball.
If you told me in January that the Mariners would be one game out of the Wild Card and just two games back of the division in mid-May, I would have been a little disappointed but still feeling pretty decent. It has, instead, been a remarkable case of horrific process and exceptionally weird results. There has been very little pleasure in this season and the most consistent thing they have to offer is their baffling inconsistency. Fresh off a truly brutal sweep at the hands of their most fearsome rivals, Seattle welcomes the plucky White Sox into T-Mobile Park. The chance to rise to .500 will have to wait, but as we’ve learned over these past 50 years, there is always the possibility of new horrors.
Game
Time
Mariners Starter
White Sox Starter
Mariners Win%
White Sox Win%
Game 1
Monday, May 18 | 6:40 pm
RHP Bryan Woo
LHP Noah Schultz
65.1%
34.9%
Game 2
Tuesday, May 19 | 6:40 pm
RHP Luis Castillo / RHP Bryce Miller
LHP Anthony Kay
61.3%
38.7%
Game 3
Wednesday, May 20 | 1:10 pm
RHP Emerson Hancock
RHP Sean Burke
59.7%
40.3%
Overview
White Sox
Mariners
Edge
Batting (wRC+)
107 (3rd in AL)
104 (4th in AL)
White Sox
Fielding (FRV)
3 (5th)
-13 (14th)
White Sox
Starting Pitching (FIP-)
102 (11th)
98 (9th)
Mariners
Bullpen (FIP-)
107 (12th)
87 (2nd)
Mariners
These are not your 2025 White Sox. Nor your 2024 White Sox. Nor your 2023 White Sox. Would you call them “good”? Well, that’s entirely up to you. But they do have higher upside and much more interest than they have for the vast majority of this decade. You saw that when they wriggled their way into a series win against the M’s barely a week and a half ago. They’re coming off of a walk-off win against the Cubs to secure the Windy Winsome Cup or whatever they pitched the Chicago rivalry to be called (it’s the Crosstown Classic), are one game back in their division and would be leading in the West. Something, something, no religion.
Player
Position
Bats
PA
K%
BB%
ISO
wRC+
Sam Antonacci
LF
L
109
12.8%
6.4%
0.132
130
Munetaka Murakami
1B
L
199
33.2%
18.1%
0.327
155
3B
R
198
16.2%
15.2%
0.259
146
SS
L
188
28.7%
9.0%
0.287
136
2B
R
189
23.3%
10.1%
0.110
101
DH
L
146
28.8%
7.5%
0.153
92
RF
L
44
27.3%
11.4%
0.103
88
CF
L
118
22.0%
7.6%
0.086
90
C
S
47
21.3%
17.0%
0.368
147
There’s Munetaka Murakami, of course. Transcendent Surf’s Up penguin that he is. Their 2021 first rounder, Colson Montgomery has been playing like how you’d hope a first rounder would. Miguel Vargas has found his stride and may be the platonic ideal of the White Sox aesthetic. Sam Antonacci is running with that Team Italy energy and is on base constantamente. Tristan Peters is having a career year (it’s all relative), Andrew Benintendi is there for a millennial jump scare, and I will not address Chase Meidroth, because it’s important to have a for-no-good-reason nemesis.
Advertisement
As you’ll see below, it’s the offense that continues to be a primary driver, and drive they will. I’m just hoping they don’t run over Seattle’s bedraggled pitching corps.
Probable Pitchers
Pitcher
IP
K%
BB%
HR/FB%
GB%
ERA
FIP
Noah Schultz
29.1
20.8%
16.8%
5.9%
35.1%
4.91
4.36
Bryan Woo
53
22.3%
4.7%
7.5%
30.3%
3.91
3.47
Pitch
Usage vRHB
Usage vLHB
Velocity
Stuff+
Whiff+
BIP+
xwOBA
Four-seam
38.7%
21.7%
95.4
96
122
132
0.317
Sinker
28.7%
52.2%
95.3
82
68
121
0.351
Cutter
21.0%
26.1%
89.5
101
Changeup
11.6%
0.0%
89.7
82
Sweeper
26.8%
63.0%
82.9
116
98
94
0.341
Noah Schultz entered the season as the White Sox top pitching prospect. The organization had handled him pretty carefully after drafting him out of high school in the first round of the 2022 draft. He’s also dealt with shoulder, forearm, and knee injuries over the last few years that have stunted his development a bit. The scouting report is impressive, however. He throws from a low slot and gets a ton of horizontal movement on all of his pitches. That doesn’t help his fastball, which grades out merely average, but his sweeper has flashed plus plus potential. All those injuries have taken a toll on his ability to command his repertoire, but the raw stuff looks promising and he’s got a very high ceiling if he can put everything together.
Pitcher
IP
K%
BB%
HR/FB%
GB%
ERA
FIP
Anthony Kay
41
15.3%
10.0%
12.5%
41.4%
4.61
5.49
Luis Castillo
44
21.3%
7.9%
12.3%
34.1%
6.34
4.57
Pitch
Usage vRHB
Usage vLHB
Velocity
Stuff+
Whiff+
BIP+
xwOBA
Four-seam
35.3%
29.4%
95.7
91
64
87
0.467
Sinker
14.9%
47.9%
95.0
112
137
142
0.377
Cutter
23.7%
21.0%
91.0
99
77
142
0.425
Changeup
23.7%
0.0%
85.8
111
85
104
0.248
Slider
2.4%
1.7%
84.4
109
Sweeper
19.8%
52.1%
82.6
109
84
86
0.330
From a previous series preview:
Advertisement
After a few years of riding the Triple-A shuttle for the Blue Jays, Anthony Kay signed a two-year deal with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of NBP. He excelled in Japan and returned to the US this offseason, signing a two-year deal with Chicago. He developed a sinker and a sweeper overseas, giving him a much deeper repertoire to keep batters off balance. Unfortunately, that revamped arsenal hasn’t helped him find much success against batters this year. The stuff models really like his sinker and a few of his secondary pitches, but he’s throwing a thoroughly mediocre four-seam fastball 30% of the time right now. That pitch is getting absolutely crushed. He simply isn’t working deep enough into counts to properly utilize his secondary pitches, his strike out rate has cratered to just 14.0%, and his ERA and FIP are both approaching six.
The Mariners haven’t officially announced their starter for Tuesday’s game, but it’s expected that Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller will combine to pitch the majority of the game in piggyback fashion. I suspect Castillo will be given the “start” and work through the lineup once before handing things off to Miller.
Pitcher
IP
K%
BB%
HR/FB%
GB%
ERA
FIP
Sean Burke
48.1
20.3%
5.4%
8.3%
36.8%
4.10
3.61
Emerson Hancock
53.2
27.1%
4.8%
14.5%
44.6%
3.02
3.62
Pitch
Usage vRHB
Usage vLHB
Velocity
Stuff+
Whiff+
BIP+
xwOBA
Four-seam
29.9%
43.1%
94.2
112
83
101
0.322
Sinker
21.6%
9.3%
94.3
89
48
170
0.315
Cutter
2.1%
6.9%
90.0
86
Changeup
0.3%
5.8%
85.8
87
Curveball
14.9%
29.4%
79.4
87
67
108
0.298
Slider
31.1%
5.4%
86.8
90
96
105
0.299
From a previous series preview:
Sean Burke showed some flashes of promise in his first full season in the big leagues last year. His 4.22 ERA was perfectly acceptable for a rebuilding Chicago club, though his 4.92 FIP wasn’t nearly as encouraging. Still, there was a stretch in May and June where he ran a 3.33 ERA and a 4.06 FIP across nine starts. Things are looking up for Burke this year. He’s dramatically improved his command and cut his walk rate by more than half, down to 5.1%. He doesn’t strike out that many guys, but simply reducing the amount of traffic on the bases has helped him dramatically improve his topline results.
The Big Picture:
Team
W-L
W%
Games Behind
Run Diff
Recent Form
Athletics
23-23
0.500
—
-13
W-L-W-L-L
Rangers
22-24
0.478
1.0
+3
W-W-L-L-W
22-26
0.458
2.0
+6
L-W-L-L-L
19-29
0.396
5.0
-51
W-L-W-W-L
Angels
16-31
0.340
7.5
-60
L-L-L-L-L
The Mariners didn’t fall too far behind the A’s and the Rangers because those two teams lost their rivalry weekend series too. Nothing really changed in the AL West standings beyond Texas gaining a single game to jump over the Mariners into second place. The Athletics will head to Anaheim to face the miserable Angels this week while the Rangers head to Colorado to face the Rockies. The Astros will look to build off their series win against their cross-state rival in a series against the Twins in Minnesota this week.