Friday evening's first game of the season against the struggling Tampa Bay Rays featured a bullpen collapse of epic proportions. The Sox bullpen has had some shaky outings already this year, but nothing quite like the disaster that was the ninth inning of Friday. Several errors in the field and the bullpen combined to allow the Rays to score five runs in the ninth inning and grab their first victory of the season.
This afternoon the White Sox will try to prevent the Rays from getting on a roll. They'll send Phillip Humber to the mount in his first start of the season and third of his career. Humber will be starting in the rotation spot of Jake Peavy, who is still in the midst of injury rehabilitation. Humber has never started against the Rays, but has compiled a 3.38 ERA and 0.94 WHIP in 5.1 innings of relief work against them. Very few of the current Rays have at-bats against Humber, with newly retired Manny Ramirez having the best statistics against him at 1-for-1.
Wade Davis will take the mound for the Rays. Davis is 0-1 this season with a 5.68 ERA after his first start at Baltimore. Against the Sox, he's 2-0 with a 2.19 ERA and 1.05 WHIP. Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez are the only Sox who have hit him well, at 2-for-6 and 2-for-4 respectively.
Today's weather is forecast to be mostly cloudy with temperatures in the mid-60s. First pitch is at 3:10 P.M. CDT and the game will be televised on WGN and FS-F HD.