Tues. White Sox at Yankees

Today’s Free Pick: Chicago White Sox at New York Yankees

The Yankees aren’t ready to call it a season yet.  After yesterday’s 9-1 win over the White Sox they sit just 2 1/2 games behind Tampa Bay for the second AL wildcard.  Baltimore is also 1/2 game in front of New York.

The good news for the Yanks is that they are playing the White Sox.  The bad news is that they must face LH Chris Sale tonight.  The 24 year old Sale (10-12, 2.99 ERA) is coming off a 4 hit 12 strikeout performance against Houston where he only gave up 1 run over 8 innings.  Sale is 4-1 over his last 5 starts.  He faced NY on August 6th winning 3-2 in a game he went 7 1/3 innings giving up 5 hits, striking out 6 and only 1 unearned run.

Sale’s counterpart tonight, RH Hiroki Kiroda (11-10, 2.890, has not fared as well lately.  Kiroda has not won a game since July 25th going 0-4 over those six starts.  Prior to that, he had been having a season where he was being talked about as a Cy Young candidate.  Not now.  The Yankees will be looking for the pre-July 26 Kiroda to emerge tonight and for the remainder of the season.

Offensively, the Yankees have picked it up late in the season bolstered by Alfonso Soriano, Robinson Cano, Ichiro Suzuki, Mark Reynolds, Curtis Granderson and even Alex Rodriguez.  The ChiSox have Alexei Ramirez and the powerful Adam Dunn, but not much else.  Avisail Garcia has provided a little lift offensively.

I think the key to this game is which Hiroki Kiroda will show up.  If the early season Kiroda does, the Yanks win.  If the recent one does, it will be a long night for the Bombers.  I also think Sale will pitch a solid game for Chicago but not necessarily dominating.  The Yanks will score some.  The uncertainty of Kiroda’s pitching leaves this a tough game to pick a winner.  However, I see the total number of 7 as attractive.  On the plus side.  If Kiroda fails again, easy over.  If he pitches well, I still think both sides will combine to score more than 7.

The Pick:  Over 7 Runs