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Alright boys, today is the fourth & final game of the series against the Tigers. The Sox have won the first three and have outscored the Tigers 22 to 9. The Sox are now 14-11 on the season (.560) and sit just two games back of the Twins for the Central lead. As I mentioned yesterday, the Sox have a tough series coming up agains the Cubs and sweeping the Tigers would allow us to enter that series with momentum intact. On the mound for the Sox is Lucas Giolito, who has struggled to live up to expectations so far this year. He’s currently 1-2 with a 4.08 FIP on the season, but has battled two issues that are more or less related: 1st inning woes & poor fastball command. Giolito’s FIP is a whopping 6.94 in the 1st vs. 3.45 in all other innings. For those who watched him closely, being unable to locate his fastball early in games and especially in the 1st has really hurt him. Lucas & Coop definitely need to find a way to get him comfortable from the get-go or the Sox will quickly find themselves trying to claw back from a deficit early in the game. As for the Tigers, they will have 27 year old right-hander Spencer Turnbull on the mound. He has a very interesting pitch mix, primarily being a sinker-slider type while coming up through the minors until recently developing a four seamer that per FanGraphs “moves unlike any other four-seam fastball” generating both high ground-ball & whiff rates. He now uses the four seamer 43% of the time, with the sinker more a complimentary pitch to keep batters off-balance. Given his arsenal, Spencer generates a lot of ground-balls (54%) and that could be troubling for a group hitters who are prone to hit the ball into the ground. They’ll have to be patient today and wait for pitches they can elevate and while watching out for Turnbull’s slider which is a wipe-out pitch for him. Overall, this should be a pretty good match-up even if not as exciting as yesterday’s. Let’s fucking go boys!!!!!