Game Thread: Phillies at White Sox

Jonathan Cannon will lead the South Siders as they look to snag a series win against Philadelphia

The White Sox (39-68) took game one Monday night, and are looking for another win tonight to take the series against the Phillies (60-46). The South Siders are 7-3 in their last 10 games, and are on the brink of their 40th win of the season. As a reminder, they won just 42 games in 2024, so this is quite the feat for the Good Guys.

Jonathan Cannon will be making his 16th start of the season, and though he had a tough outing against Tampa Bay last week, his ERA has mostly been trending back down with a 4.15 ERA in July (four starts, 21 2⁄3 innings). Cannon’s record is 4-7, and he is sitting at a 4.48 ERA with 72 strikeouts on the year, and has significantly cut down walks since the start of the season.

Cannon could have a difficult time with some of the Phillies’ sluggers, as both Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper have been absolutely mashing in their last 10 games. We all saw Schwarber’s power on a national stage at the All-Star game, and he’s kept it going, leading Philadelphia in home runs (six), RBI (15), walks (seven), slugging percentage (.821), and capped off by a 1.234 OPS. (I hope you got as excited about the 1-2-3-4 as I did).

Bryce Harper is not far behind, ranking second in slugging (.780) and OPS (1.136). Only Trea Turner has more hits than both of them (13), but overall, the Phillies are one of the hottest-hitting teams in baseball these past couple of weeks.

Here’s how visitors are lining them up tonight:

Making his 22nd start of the season, lefthander Jesús Luzardo will be on the mound for the Phillies. Luzardo started out the year strong, but he’s struggled with preventing runs from scoring as of late, and he’s given up six or more tallies four times since May 31, and he gave up 12 that game — woof. Luzardo has a 4.58 ERA on the season, and even with his difficulties, he still strikes out a lot of guys and ranks 13th in MLB in 2025 with 136 Ks with a highly efficient 27.7% strikeout rate.

The good news for the White Sox is that they have also been one of the best-hitting teams since the All-Star break. In the 10 games since then, the South Siders have struck out just 63 times (sixth lowest in MLB), which could be helpful to limit the Ks against Luzardo tonight. As a team, they also rank second in batting average (.290), slugging percentage (.510), and RBI (71), while also ranking third in OPS (.851) in all of baseball. Maybe Steve Stone had a point when he said to enjoy the ride, because I guess the ride isn’t so bad at this current moment. I will have a different opinion in a couple of weeks, don’t worry.

One of the main reasons for the offensive success has been Colson Montgomery, who holds the third most RBI in MLB (15) since the break and has blasted four bombs and posted a .947 OPS. Luis Robert Jr. has also had a resurgence, slashing .360/.467/.600 with a 1.067 OPS in his last seven games, and it goes to say that Mike Tauchman has continued to be a hit merchant for the South Siders and has 10 RBI of his own.

Everybody rejoice, because Edgar Quero and Kyle Teel are finally in the same lineup, folks! For whatever reason, Kyle Teel has played just five games in the last two weeks, which is foolish when you see that he’s slashing .444/.444/.667 with a home run and a 1.111 OPS in those 18 at-bats. It’s a very small sample size, but it’s really time to let the rookies get the experience and allow them to grow in their position while the Sox already have a losing record.

First pitch will take place at 6:40 p.m. CT, and can be viewed on CHSN or listened to on the radio at ESPN Chicago AM 1000. Let’s get the W!