Two young kids going tonight for Sox and Tigers in prime time

Well, well, well. ESPN is jumping on the bandwagon tonight and showcasing the Tigers and White Sox battle tonight. It should be an interesting battle between the two young starters tonight in Rick Porcello and Clayton Richard.

Clayton Richard is on the verge of losing his spot in the starting rotation to Bartolo Colon. Tonight he is receiving a spot start tonight in place of John Danks. Richard has a 5.00 ERA, and that is fairly representative of his play. He has a 4.51 FIP,a BABIP of .323, and a LOB % of 69.0. Technically, that would mean that his ERA will drop. However, the Tigers are not facing an elite pitcher tonight. As of today, Richard is what he is: a bottom of the rotation starter or an arm out of the bullpen. His 1.53 WHIP, .280 opponent batting average and 1.11 HR/9 ratio are all below average for a typical big league starter. His K/BB ratio of 1.80 is also below average. And, his tRA of 4.96 also shows his true ability this season. This is a pitcher the Tigers could light up.

Richard is a ground ball pitcher with a GB/FB ratio of 1.41. He is almost exclusively a 3 pitch pitcher with a fastball, changeup and slider. He features a 91 MPH fastball with good sink to it. However, according to Fangraphs, Richard does not feature one plus pitch.

Richard is coming off his best start of the year when he went 8 strong innings and allowed only 1 ER against the Rays. However, for the most part, he has been disappointing lately. Other than that start, he has not lasted longer than 6 innings in any start and has an ERA over 6 since the start of June.

As for what we should expect to see tonight... Richard has natural splits with righties hitting better off him than lefties. B/c of that we should see a right handed heavy lineup. Maggs, Thames and Everett should all be back in the starting lineup tonight. The Tigers batters, overall, have done well against Richard. In his last start against us, he allowed 10 baserunners in 4.2 IP and 3 ER. It is a small sample size, but Ordonez, Inge and Everett have an OPS over 1.000 against him.

Rick Porcello is going for us tonight after 3 straight rough starts. Despite the rumors on the radio, Porcell0's velocity has not dropped but the bite on some of his pitches have. Porcello has a 4.40 ERA that is beginning to reflect how he has pitched the majority of this season. Rick has a 5.14 FIP and his WHIP, opponent batting average, HR/9 and K/BB ratio all come out below league average. However, it should be noted that Porcello has been getting a little unlucky in recent starts as a HR/FB % of 18.1 is not likely to continue. In fact, his xFIP of 4.43 would suggest that we could start to see a leveling out of his ERA.

Porcello continues to be a good grounball pitcher with a GB/FB ratio of above 2, and his sinker remains a plus pitch. His splits are traditional as lefties hit better off him than right handed batters. So, Jim Thome will be one guy tonight that he will especially have to be careful with.

As for what to expect tonight... well, Porcello has never faced the White Sox. He has allowed at least 9 baserunners and 4 ER in each of his last 3 starts (none of which lasted longer than 5 innings). However, there are some numbers to suggest that he might be getting a bit unlucky with some of those batted balls in play. Could tonight be a night where he turns in a good start against a team trying to avoid a sweep? Lets hope so.