New York Yankees vs. Chicago White Sox: Series Preview
· Yahoo Sports
What a difference a year makes. The White Sox weren’t quite historically bad in 2025, but they still lost 102 games and were very much in the wilderness. Now they’re a game and a half clear of anyone in the division, and while they’re not necessarily projected to stay in that slot, first place is first place and someone in the annual AL Central Rock Fight needs to knock them off that perch.
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The team has a couple real stars, after multiple seasons of trading away the only players that were halfway interesting. There are five hitters in the lineup that boast plus production, led by Miguel Vargas at third base, and a rotation that bounces between solid and quite good. You can see the pieces being set into place for what would be a genuinely good baseball team, and the Yankees can’t afford to assume this version of the Sox will just roll over and die.
The Yankees will be without Cody Bellinger, who was put on the IL with a bad hamstring on Sunday. With another All Star-caliber player unavailable, the pitching needs to once again carry the load — fortunately, the team has the three guys you want going to start the series, a good preview of a potential playoff deployment, and the fourth guy is coming off a damn good outing in his own right.
Monday — Max Fried vs. Noah Schultz (7:40pm Eastern)
Fried roared back into the rotation against the Pirates last week, throwing five innings with a 7:1 K:BB ratio while still on a limited pitch count. He lowered his season ERA to below 3.00 and certainly assuaged early concerns that he would need to be handled with kid gloves returning from his bone bruise. Now he’ll be brought to bear against a White Sox side that’s relatively mediocre against southpaws, managing just a 98 wRC+ so far this season.
Schultz was a first-round pick by the Sox, 12th overall back in 2022, but hasn’t really found his footing in his first taste of MLB action. He throws a four-seam/sinker combo that is mediocre, but the real problem has been a complete lack of anything resembling secondary stuff. One of the worst sweepers in baseball is paired with one of the worst changeups, and for a Yankee team that is dead set on having a lefty-specialist lineup, the goal has to be to hunt heaters and spit on any other offering.
Tuesday — Gerrit Cole vs. Anthony Kay (7:40pm Eastern)
Dadbod Cole is probably past the AL Cy Young frontrunner days, but has been solid enough outside of two rocky starts following Tommy John surgery. His last outing against Pittsburgh was a great test for what you see as valuable in pitching — he gave up two home runs but just two other hits, and struck out 11 against no walks in seven innings. He has the lowest walk rate of his career across the 11 starts he’s made this season, but that’s been paired with the second-highest home run rate he’s ever posted. He fills up the zone but has yet to figure out how to manage contact quality, and the White Sox can elevate the ball.
Anthony Kay, formerly of the Blue Jays, hasn’t had the best 2026. I tend to consider K-BB rate as the best singular stat to examine pitchers with, and Kay has just a 9 point separation between those two numbers. Cam Schlittler might just win the Cy Young award so it may be unfair to compare him to Kay, but HIS K-BB rate is over 25 percent. Good pitchers, you’re looking at somewhere between 15-20 percent. Kay doesn’t strike many men out, and walks his share, so the trick to success against him is going to be avoiding the chase. Make him bring the ball into the zone and there are hits to be found.
Wednesday — Cam Schlittler vs. Davis Martin (7:40pm Eastern)
We have an ace-off in game three. Writing about Schlittler is getting to be a bit superfluous, like Aaron Judge in the peak of an MVP campaign, there are only so many ways to say he’s standing above every other pitcher in the Junior Circuit. We’re fresh off his dominant Friday night performance against the Phillies, striking out a dozen across 7.1 shutout innings, hand-delivering the Yankees a 1-0 win. He is the most exciting player to watch on this Yankee roster, and we’ve begun to expect to win on every fifth day.
For his part, Davis Martin will give as good as he gets. Already worth 3.1 fWAR on the season, he’d be someone that gets Cy Young murmurings if not for the year Cam’s having. He was absolutely thumped in mid-June against the Yankees though, surrendering nine earned runs on a trio of home runs and not making it out of the fourth inning, He’ll be out for redemption on Wednesday night, and righties in the Yankee lineup will need to be particularly careful when facing one of baseball’s best changeups.
Thursday — Ryan Weathers vs. Sean Burke(2:10pm Eastern)
You can’t exactly copy and paste what I said above about Schlittler here. Weathers isn’t nearly as good and won’t get Cy Young consideration, but he is also coming off a stellar start against the Phillies. For me, the thing to watch about Weathers the rest of the year is fastball usage. His four-seam is honestly pretty pathetic, and I’ve been wondering all year when he’ll move his secondary pitches into his primary offerings, “pitching backwards” as the saying goes. He did that well on Saturday, and I think if he continues to do so he’ll move on the favorable side of average.
Burke, 26, is the second piece of a good 1-2 tandem with Martin, posting 2.5 fWAR so far in 2026. The opposite of Weathers in many ways, his four-seam is his bread and butter pitch while the changeup is an offering he’s best left leaving on the table. He was stellar in his one start against the Yankees this year, throwing 7.1 innings and allowing a single run, striking out eight with one walk. If he’s gonna do that again this go around, it’s a good thing the Yankees face him last.