Tough Road For Phillies Opponent

Sometimes statistics can be misleading, but it's hard to ignore one that appears to be very much in the Phillies favor for Saturday's first game of the day/night doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies will be facing White Sox lefthander John Danks, who has had extreme difficulty, to put it mildly, away from U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

This season Danks is 0-5 with a 6.43 ERA in five road starts. He is 2-1 with a 2.22 ERA in four home starts. Danks owns the second-largest differential (4.21) between home and road ERA in the American League this season.

This year on the road opponents are batting .310 against Danks, while at home he is holding hitters to a .196 average.

Danks has lost to four sub .500 teams on the road, Seattle, Houston, Minnesota and the Chicago Cubs. The only quality team that he lost to on the road was Tampa Bay in his last outing. Actually Danks pitched well, allowing three runs (all earned) on five hits in seven innings during a 3-1 loss on July 7.

So even though the numbers clearly favor the Phillies, Danks is coming off his best road performance of the season.

The Phillies are playing some of their best baseball and are 7-3 in their last 10. They hope to continue the momentum, while adding to Danks' misery away from home.