The Red Sox will return to a more typical outfield against the Tampa Bay Rays and James Shields on Saturday, giving J.D. Drew and Josh Reddick the start in right and left field respectively.
While the Sox suffered a tough loss Friday night, it was anything but the offense’s fault. Scoring six runs on four homers, the lineup did enough to win a typical game, but they just couldn’t quite dig themselves out of the hole Andrew Miller had dug for them. What was missing, however, was any sort of contribution from lefty sluggers Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz, who combined to go 0-for-8. Hopefully they’ll see some better results against the right-hander on the mound Saturday.
Boston Red Sox (55-36)
- Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
- Dustin Pedroia, 2B
- Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
- Kevin Youkilis, 3B
- David Ortiz, DH
- J.D. Drew, RF
- Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
- Josh Reddick, LF
- Marco Scutaro, SS
The Rays will throw out a lineup with most of the same players as on Friday, but with a lot of shuffling done to the order.
Tampa Bay Rays (50-41)
- Johnny Damon, DH
- Ben Zobrist, 2B
- Casey Kotchman, 1B
- Evan Longoria, 3B
- Matt Joyce, RF
- B.J. Upton, CF
- Sam Fuld, LF
- Kelly Shoppach, C
- Reid Brignac, SS
Pitching Matchup: John Lackey (6-8, 6.84 ERA) vs. James Shields (8-7, 2.33 ERA)
After his best outing of the year, Red Sox fans might be thinking that John Lackey has turned over a new leaf, and is ready to start the second half of his season off right with another big game, this time against the Rays.
Don’t bet on it.
After all, it was just two weeks ago that John Lackey gave up seven runs to the Blue Jays in 2.1 innings–a start which came immediately after Lackey threw seven innings of 2-run ball against the Phillies. Tempting though it may be to hope John Lackey could finally start performing like the starting pitcher the Sox paid for, he’ll need to establish quite a bit more credibility before it can really be expected of him. Meanwhile, all we have to go on are his repeated failures against the Rays since they rose to relevancy. Since 2008, Lackey has a nice fat 6.62 ERA against Tampa.
Of course, even if he does have a decent game, James Shields may well make that irrelevant. Gone is the Shileds of the second half from last year, replaced by a full-fledged ace who ranks among the best in the league. Sox fans may have blacked out the last game they had against him, but Shields certainly hasn’t. It was, after all, the most recent of his three complete game shutouts on the year.