White Sox vs Guardians MLB Pick Monday

White Sox vs. Guardians Odds

The first installment of this three-game AL Central series is set to get underway on Monday evening with the third-place Cleveland Guardians hosting the fourth-place Chicago White Sox.

These two clubs squared off last week in Chicago, with Cleveland dropping two of the three games on the road. Will the Guardians enact their revenge on their home diamond, or can the White Sox continue to turn their season around?

Here’s a look at the odds, as well as my White Sox vs. Guardians betting pick.

As of Monday morning, we still have no idea who is going to take the mound for the Chicago White Sox. Since it remains to be seen who will start for Chicago, we are going to avoid that aspect of this game and instead focus on backing the White Sox lineup.

After a horrendous start to the campaign, Chicago has rallied around a solid batting order to win five of its past six games. Part of the success for this lineup is its avoidance of the strikeout, a trend likely to continue in this contest as right-hander Hunter Gaddis is projected to get the nod for the Cleveland Guardians.

This season, the White Sox rank ninth in the league in K% when facing right-handed pitching. We should not be too surprised at this ranking, considering that this team ranked seventh in 2022 in the same category.

Looking at Monday’s projected lineup, six of the nine hitters possess a K% south of 21% this year.

It has been a difficult campaign for the right-handed Gaddis as he is 0-1 with a 6.86 ERA and 1.42 WHIP through five appearances on the mound.

Something Gaddis particularly struggles with is the ability to retire hitters via the strikeout. Over his past four outings, he has racked up four strikeouts just once, in his outing against the Oakland Athletics.

While the White Sox have had their own problems this year, they are nowhere near as terrible as the Athletics. This season, Gaddis ranks in the 13th percentile or lower in K%, Whiff% and Chase Rate.

He has failed to surpass three strikeouts in each of his past three starts, a trend likely to continue against Chicago.

White Sox vs. Guardians Betting Pick

Gaddis’ woes are likely to continue against the White Sox. While it is an incredibly small sample size, this current Chicago roster boasts a .556 BA, 2.000 SLG, and 1.061 wOBA through nine career plate appearances against the right-hander.

He has only collected one strikeout over those nine plate appearances. Again, a very small sample size, but given all the other aforementioned variables, we should expect another low-strikeout outing from Gaddis.