Picks, predictions for White Sox vs. Rangers on Thursday, August 3

After rolling to an 11-1 win on Wednesday night, the Texas Rangers (62-46) look for a clean sweep of their three-game set with the Chicago White Sox (43-66). First pitch of Thursday afternoon’s finale is set for 2:05 p.m. ET from Globe Life Park in Arlington. Touki Toussaint (0-1, 4.91 ERA) gets the ball for Chicago, while marquee deadline acquisition Max Scherzer (9-4, 4.01) will make his Rangers debut.

After shipping off just about everything that wasn’t nailed down at the trade deadline, the White Sox will be playing out the string for the next two months. (They likely won’t catch the lowly Royals for last place in the AL Central, at least.) Chicago will continue its road trip with a weekend set against the division-rival Guardians in Cleveland.

The Rangers were as aggressive as possible at the deadline, landing Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery in an attempt to patch their injury-ravaged rotation and hold off the hard-charging Houston Astros in the AL West. Texas’ lead is down to just half a game, although the schedule will remain manageable with a weekend set against the Miami Marlins followed by a trip to Oakland to face the A’s.

Texas enters as heavy -265 favorites on the moneyline at DraftKings Sportsbook, with Chicago coming in at +215. The run total is set at 8.5.

White Sox-Rangers picks: Thursday, August 3

Injury report

White Sox

Out: RP Garrett Crochet (shoulder), OF Trayce Thompson (oblique), INF Romy Gonzalez (shoulder)

Rangers

Out: C Jonah Heim (wrist), SP Nathan Eovaldi (forearm), UTIL Brad Miller (hamstring)

Starting pitchers

Touki Toussaint vs. Max Scherzer

A former first-round pick and top prospect, Toussaint has pitched pretty well after injuries in Chicago’s rotation gave him another shot at starting. The righty made six appearances (five starts) in July and posted a 3.46 ERA across 26 innings, most recently firing five shutout frames against the crosstown rival Cubs. His arsenal is a bit similar to Yankees righty Domingo German: Toussaint throws his curveball more than any other pitch, and it’s not hard to see why, with a .093 BA against and a 35.6% whiff rate. His fastball isn’t anything to write home about, but if he can keep it out of harm’s way and let the curve shine he can have success.

Scherzer was just one of many Mets stars responsible for their deeply disappointing start to 2023 (and subsequent fire sale), but the righty remains a very effective pitcher, with a 75th-percentile K rate and several great starts this season — he just held the Washington Nationals to one run over seven innings his last time out. He’s been bitten by a fluky home run rate, with a whopping 10 long balls allowed just in the month of July, but that should stabilize; if he can avoid the occasional meatball, he can still be a frontline starter down the stretch.

Over/Under pick

The White Sox have been dismal against right-handed pitching all year — Dane Dunning just struck out 11 over seven innings of one-run ball last night — and don’t figure to break that trend with Scherzer looking to impress in his Texas debut. So the question becomes: How many runs can the Rangers push across against Toussaint and a depleted White Sox bullpen? I’m guessing they don’t quite do enough to reach this number; prior to Wednesday’s outburst, they’d scored three or fewer runs in five of their last six games.

Pick: Under 8.5

Moneyline pick

With so much juice on Chicago, I’d love to come up with a reason to back them as road ‘dogs today. Alas, the line is what it is for a reason, and there’s no reason to think that this depleted lineup will do much of anything against Scherzer.

Pick: Rangers