John Lackey, Red Sox try to avoid Rays' broom
Tampa Bay looks to complete a four-game sweep at Fenway Park on Patriot's Day when the Rays send right-hander Jeff Niemann to the mound in Boston against John Lackey and the Red Sox.
The 114th running of the Boston Marathon gets underway a little after 9 a.m. Monday. For the Red Sox, their series with the Rays probably already feels like a marathon with one more game to go.
While Ryan Hall tries to become the first American to win the men's portion of the Boston Marathon since Greg Meyer in 1983, John Lackey will try and keep Boston from being swept by Tampa Bay. Early odds suggest he will with the Red Sox minus 165 against the Rays' Jeff Niemann. The total opened at nine with the 'under' minus 120.
After taking Friday's game 3-1 in 12 innings and holding on for a 6-5 win on Saturday, Tampa Bay rode the right arm of Matt Garza to a 7-1 win on Sunday. Garza, who closed as the 125 underdog, worked eight scoreless innings for the win to move to 3-0 on the young season and lower his ERA to 0.75.
Carlos Peña and B.J. Upton each connected on two-run homers to provide the bulk of the offense against Boston's Jon Lester. It marked the third straight defeat for the Red Sox in Lester starts with the southpaw's ERA bloating to 8.44.
The loss was the fourth straight for the Sox, and fifth in six tries. Tampa moved to 6-0 on the road to begin the 2010 campaign.
Sunday's final just fell shy of the 8 ½-run total, giving the 'under' the win for the fourth time in the last five Rays, Red Sox meetings dating back to last September.
Niemann (1-0, 3.24) will be making his first start at Fenway. He has just one outing against the Red Sox, and it wasn't pretty. Boston knocked the former Rice star around in Tampa in May 2009, scoring six runs in three innings for an eventual 10-6 win. Niemann was a 107 underdog in that battle to Boston's Tim Wakefield.
Lackey (1-1, 1.42) will be thrust into the stopper's role in just his third Red Sox assignment. His last four starts against the Rays came while he was with the Angels and yielded a 3-1 record for both him and the Halos. The one loss was last June in Tampa when the Rays stroked two homers among their 11 hits off Lackey in five innings, scoring nine runs, eight of them earned. One of the long flies was off Peña's bat.
Peña has been heating off with Sunday's blast his fourth of the season all in the last eight games. But he is hitting just .217 lifetime versus Lackey. Carl Crawford has been Lackey's chief nemesis in Tampa's lineup over time, with a .394 average (13-for-33), including a home run.
Boston's outfield has been decimated with recent injuries and a big part of the reason why the offense has plated just 12 runs in the last six games. Ellsbury has been out of the lineup since April 11 with a rib injury and is not expected to play Monday. Jeremy Hermida has taken his place in left and after a good beginning has gone one for his last 15 at the plate with seven strikeouts his last four games.
J.D. Drew in right is nursing a sore neck and hitting just .132 on the season. Offseason center field pickup Mike Cameron has been suffering from a kidney stone and is hitting .233 with a big goose egg in both the HR and RBI columns.
Angel Campos is in rotation to call the balls and strikes for Monday's game, and like Niemann this is his first plate duty at Fenway since starting his MLB umpire career in 2007. Campos worked one of Lackey's starts in Anaheim during the 2009 season with Lackey tossing a complete game shutout versus the Mariners. He did not call a Tampa Bay game in '09.
Monday's weather calls for a 20 percent chance of rain with temps warming into the mid-50s during the day and NW winds 12-15 mph.
The Rays will move from Boston to Chicago on Tuesday where they will open a three-game series against the White Sox. The Red Sox remain in Boston with six games left on its 10-game homestand. Texas comes to Fenway on Tuesday for the start of three followed by Baltimore next weekend.
NOTE: The W-L records shown for starting pitchers are their team's W-L mark when they started games in the 2009 season. Statistical sources for this article were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, ESPN.com and, of course, S-BEE-R-dot-com!
Tampa Bay looks to complete a four-game sweep at Fenway Park on Patriot's Day when the Rays send right-hander Jeff Niemann to the mound in Boston against John Lackey and the Red Sox.
The 114th running of the Boston Marathon gets underway a little after 9 a.m. Monday. For the Red Sox, their series with the Rays probably already feels like a marathon with one more game to go.
While Ryan Hall tries to become the first American to win the men's portion of the Boston Marathon since Greg Meyer in 1983, John Lackey will try and keep Boston from being swept by Tampa Bay. Early odds suggest he will with the Red Sox minus 165 against the Rays' Jeff Niemann. The total opened at nine with the 'under' minus 120.
After taking Friday's game 3-1 in 12 innings and holding on for a 6-5 win on Saturday, Tampa Bay rode the right arm of Matt Garza to a 7-1 win on Sunday. Garza, who closed as the 125 underdog, worked eight scoreless innings for the win to move to 3-0 on the young season and lower his ERA to 0.75.
Carlos Peña and B.J. Upton each connected on two-run homers to provide the bulk of the offense against Boston's Jon Lester. It marked the third straight defeat for the Red Sox in Lester starts with the southpaw's ERA bloating to 8.44.
The loss was the fourth straight for the Sox, and fifth in six tries. Tampa moved to 6-0 on the road to begin the 2010 campaign.
Sunday's final just fell shy of the 8 ½-run total, giving the 'under' the win for the fourth time in the last five Rays, Red Sox meetings dating back to last September.
Niemann (1-0, 3.24) will be making his first start at Fenway. He has just one outing against the Red Sox, and it wasn't pretty. Boston knocked the former Rice star around in Tampa in May 2009, scoring six runs in three innings for an eventual 10-6 win. Niemann was a 107 underdog in that battle to Boston's Tim Wakefield.
Lackey (1-1, 1.42) will be thrust into the stopper's role in just his third Red Sox assignment. His last four starts against the Rays came while he was with the Angels and yielded a 3-1 record for both him and the Halos. The one loss was last June in Tampa when the Rays stroked two homers among their 11 hits off Lackey in five innings, scoring nine runs, eight of them earned. One of the long flies was off Peña's bat.
Peña has been heating off with Sunday's blast his fourth of the season all in the last eight games. But he is hitting just .217 lifetime versus Lackey. Carl Crawford has been Lackey's chief nemesis in Tampa's lineup over time, with a .394 average (13-for-33), including a home run.
Boston's outfield has been decimated with recent injuries and a big part of the reason why the offense has plated just 12 runs in the last six games. Ellsbury has been out of the lineup since April 11 with a rib injury and is not expected to play Monday. Jeremy Hermida has taken his place in left and after a good beginning has gone one for his last 15 at the plate with seven strikeouts his last four games.
J.D. Drew in right is nursing a sore neck and hitting just .132 on the season. Offseason center field pickup Mike Cameron has been suffering from a kidney stone and is hitting .233 with a big goose egg in both the HR and RBI columns.
Angel Campos is in rotation to call the balls and strikes for Monday's game, and like Niemann this is his first plate duty at Fenway since starting his MLB umpire career in 2007. Campos worked one of Lackey's starts in Anaheim during the 2009 season with Lackey tossing a complete game shutout versus the Mariners. He did not call a Tampa Bay game in '09.
Monday's weather calls for a 20 percent chance of rain with temps warming into the mid-50s during the day and NW winds 12-15 mph.
The Rays will move from Boston to Chicago on Tuesday where they will open a three-game series against the White Sox. The Red Sox remain in Boston with six games left on its 10-game homestand. Texas comes to Fenway on Tuesday for the start of three followed by Baltimore next weekend.
NOTE: The W-L records shown for starting pitchers are their team's W-L mark when they started games in the 2009 season. Statistical sources for this article were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, ESPN.com and, of course, S-BEE-R-dot-com!
