First pitch is 3:10 PM CT for the middle game of this 3-game set, and as of Friday neither club had locked in a Saturday starter. The Dodgers are juggling a rotation gutted by 60-day IL stints for Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Gavin Stone and Bobby Miller, while Chicago is patching around its own injury list — so whoever toes the rubber is probably a bullpen-game candidate or a fresh face. Treat the pitcher card above as gospel once it populates. The bigger story is the building Chicago is playing in. After back-to-back 100-loss seasons and a 121-loss bottom in 2024, Will Venable's White Sox sit 36-31 and just a hair off the AL Central lead. They took 2 of 3 from the Braves before Thursday's rainout (now an August 20 makeup), and their year-over-year wRC+ jump from 88 to 104 is the biggest in the sport. This is not a punchline team anymore — at least not in June. For Los Angeles, the headline is Shohei Ohtani's knee. He tweaked it on a stolen-base attempt earlier in the week and is officially day-to-day, but Dave Roberts said there's a strong chance he's in the Friday lineup, which would line him up to play Saturday too. Will Smith just hit the 10-day IL with a neck issue, Teoscar Hernandez is a month away with a hamstring, and Enrique Hernandez is looking at 6 to 8 weeks with an oblique tear. The lineup is still a buzzsaw, but the depth chart is getting thin. Chicago's offensive engine has been Munetaka Murakami, who was slashing .240/.378/.560 with 20 homers before a Grade 2 hamstring strain in late May. He's getting PRP injections and isn't walking through that door for this series, which puts the run-producing burden on whichever spot-start arm Venable hands the ball to. The White Sox have hung in by winning low-scoring fights — back-to-back home wins over Atlanta by 6-5 and 2-1 are the template. The Dodgers come in 44-25 and just took the Pittsburgh series 2 of 3, including an 8-6 grind on Thursday after blowing a winnable game on Wednesday. They've alternated W-L-W-L-W over the last 5, which is half-charming and half-sloppy for a team built to bury opponents. Against a thin White Sox staff in a small ballpark, the LA bats should be the loudest sound in the building — assuming Ohtani is upright.