Dodgers / White Sox, Series Preview

Hitting:

	AVE	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA	RAR MLB Rank
Dodgers	.279	.358	.408	.766	.339	8th
White Sox	.282	.324	.399	.722	.319	25th

Skinny: Over the course of the season, the Dodgers have had a much better offense than the White Sox. When you look at the offenses over the month of June, the two offenses are pretty similar as the Dodgers once sizzling offense has come back down to earth. During the month of June, the Dodgers have an OPS of .702 and a wOBA of .312, while the White Sox have had an OPS of .715 and a wOBA of .319.

Starting Pitching:
The White Sox starting pitching has been solid this year, posting a WAR of 6.55. Meanwhile the Dodgers starting staff is not too far behind, with a WAR of 5.97. Up to this point the trio of Gavin Floyd, Mark Buehrle and John Danks have carried the White Sox starting pitching staff. Of the three, only Danks and Floyd could be considered strikeout pitchers. Let's take a look at the pitching matchups for the upcoming series.

Date	Pitcher	IP	W-L	ERA	FIP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP	GB/FB Ratio
6/23	Hiroki Kuroda	28.0	1-3	3.86	3.71	6.75	2.25	0.96	.266	1.56
6/23	John Danks	74.1	5-5	4.48	4.06	8.48	3.15	1.21	.314	1.27
6/24	Randy Wolf	93.0	3-2	3.29	4.02	6.68	2.71	1.06	.260	0.79
6/24	Gavin Floyd	89.0	4-5	4.65	3.80	7.38	3.44	0.81	.307	1.30
6/25	Chad Billingsley	98.2	9-3	2.83	3.00	8.76	4.01	0.27	.300	1.21
6/25	Jose Contreras	51.2	2-6	5.23	4.32	5.23	3.31	0.87	.289	1.34

H.Kuroda vs J.Danks
White Sox followers would like you to believe that Danks is their hard throwing left handed version of Clayton Kershaw. Danks is a few years older than Kershaw, so the comparison has it's limitations, but nonetheless Danks is a good young LHP. Danks is coming off of a 7 inning, 7 strike-out, 0 runs performance against the Cubs. Kuroda has been pretty solid since his return from the DL, though he did get touched up for two homeruns in his last start vs the A's. The White Sox should be slight favorites to win this game as Danks is a solid pitcher and the White Sox are playing at home.

Randy Wolf vs Gavin Floyd
Gavin Floyd has been having a productive season for the White Sox so far. His biggest surprise has been the uptick in his K/9, which is currently sitting at 7.38, a full strikeout above his seasonal projection. Floyd's FIP sits at 3.80, quite a bit lower than his ERA of 4.65. Randy Wolf enters the series with an ERA of 3.29 and a shoe box full of no-decisions. Many of Randy's stats point to the ERA of 3.29 being a bit on the lucky side (Wolf Stat's, FIP: 4.02, BABIP: .260, LOB%: 76.4%). The White Sox should once again be slight favorites to win this game.

C.Billingsley vs J.Contreras
Contreras, the 37 year old veteran who recently made it back into the White Sox starting rotation hasn't pitched as bad as his ERA of 5.23 would indicate. Contreras has been hampered by some bad luck to the tune of a 60% LOB%. Which means that other teams are getting an unfair share of clutch hits against him. Contreras hasn't lost much velocity off of his fastball as he has aged, but tends to throw a lot more sliders and a lot less split fingered fastballs than he did back in his more successful Yankees days. Billingsley has been rock solid this year. His BB/9 (4.01) is up a little bit this year, but it's being offset by his low HR/9 of 0.27. Chances are, the series will be tied up going into this game, setting the Dodgers up for a good opportunity to take 2 out of 3 from another AL team.

Bullpen:
Both teams have very good bullpens. The difference being that each team has gotten it's value out of different roles. The Dodgers best relief pitcher is Jonathan Broxton, who is one of the best closers in all of baseball. Ronald Belisario and Ramon Troncoso have been solid in making sure that Broxton gets the ball in a save situation. The White Sox on the otherhand, have been getting the best performances from setup men Matt Thornton (FIP: 2.42, K/9: 11.96) and lower leverage innings pitcher D.J. Carrasco, who is a ground ball machine. Below, let's take a look at a table that lists the average leverage index that each relief pitcher from both teams enters the game with. I do this, to get an idea of how each manager uses his bullpen. I am looking at the last 30 days!

Dodgers	J.Broxton (1.59)	R.Troncoso (1.51)	R.Belisario (1.23)	C.Wade (1.01)	G.Mota (0.77)	B.Leach (0.68)
White Sox	M.Thornton (1.54)	B.Jenks (1.53)	O.Dotel (1.22)	S.Linebrink (1.01)	D.Carrasco (0.64)	J.Gobble (0.40)	J.Poreda (0.23)

Defense:
Both teams are average fielding teams, though they do have their share of good and bad fielders. For the White Sox, Jayson Nix who has played 2B, 3B, SS, LF and RF has been the best defender, along with first baseman Paul Konerko. For the Dodgers CF-Matt Kemp is among the league leaders in UZR, and SS-Rafael Furcal ranks high among the leagues shortstops. For the White Sox, you won't see too many good defensive plays out of RF-Jermaine Dye (UZR: -7.2), 3B-Josh Fields (UZR: -5.7, when he does play) and 2B-Chris Getz (UZR: -4.7). The Dodgers have been getting suspect defense out of RF-Andre Either (UZR: -12.4 Lack of range and poor arm) and 2B-Orlando Hudson (UZR: -3.5 Lack of range).