CHICAGO -- The Chicago White Sox are currently dealing with two back issues as Adam Dunn will continue to play through one, while Tyler Fowers will miss a third day in the lineup with his own.
Dunn had just started to turn things around on the most recent road trip, hitting three home runs in a three-game series at Minnesota before adding another against the Los Angeles Angels out in California.
Since that final game of the Angels series, though, Dunn has just one hit, and his current 1-for-21 stretch with 11 strikeouts resembles some of his worst struggles this season.
Despite those results, manager Robin Ventura said Dunn was still good enough to be in the lineup for Sunday’s series finale against the Miami Marlins.
“He’s doing something (different),” Ventura said, referring to how Dunn looks now compared to how he looked last week. “You don’t necessarily know what it is unless you’re the guy at the plate. But it is a little different and eventually he’s going to get healthy and get back to kind of that run he went on back on the road trip.”
Flowers, whose offensive struggles have been similar to Dunn’s this season, hasn’t played since Wednesday’s finale of the Boston Red Sox series. He is just 3-for-19 (.158) over the past six games he played.
“Flowers should be better by (Monday),” Ventura said. “He can play if we needed him to today, but just holding him out as a precaution. If something happened to Hector (Gimenez) he’d be in there.”
Gimenez went 4-for-5 with a home run in a May 18 start against the Angels, but has gone just 1-for-6 with an RBI in starts Friday and Saturday.
Sunday's complete White Sox lineup against Miami Marlins right-hander Alex Sanabia:
Alejandro De Aza, CF
Alexei Ramirez, SS
Alex Rios, RF
Adam Dunn, DH
Paul Konerko, 1B
Dayan Viciedo, LF
Conor Gillaspie, 3B
Jeff Keppinger, 2B
Dylan Axelrod is the starting pitcher.