| 19 July 2010
The Red Sox hope to have a number of key players back in uniform come August... but with the dreaded West Coast roadtrip set to begin tonight in Oakland, the Sox can't afford to get caught looking ahead.
The A's may be 46-46 on the season, but they've won 5 in a row, while we were losing 7 of our last 10. We wasted a solid outing from Lester yesterday, so now we'll be looking for Daisuke Matsuzaka to play stopper...
After frustrating the Nation with three straight games with four free passes, Matsuzaka finally gave us a watchable performance with 6 solid innings against the Blue Jays. He didn't walk anybody and held the Jays to 2 runs, but Tito shut him down after 88 pitches and called on Daniel Bard to handle the 7th and 8th.
Dice-K has faced the A's already this season and got the win after 6 2/3 innings, 10 hits and 3 runs allowed. With guys like Kevin Kouzmanoff and Ryan Sweeney leading the offense, this should be a winnable game for the Sox, but if the offense can't get to Ben Sheets this could become a battle of the bullpens.
Sheets has been mediocre all season, but he hasn't allowed more than 4 runs in a game since May 2nd. I'd happily trade my left arm for four runs right now, so hopefully that's all we need tonight. Last time out, the A's crushed Scott Kzmir and the Angels, while Sheet held the Halos to 2 hits and no runs through 6. I'm not sure we're better than the Angels right now... but I guess we'll find out.
Key Matchups
Kouzmanoff is hitting .385 with 7 RBI over the last 7 days. Mark Ellis is 5 for 12 (.417) this week and is 5 for 16 (.313) with a ding dong against Matsuzaka.
JD Drew is 10 for 34 (.294) with 4 homers against Sheets. Kevin Youkilis has carried the offense out of the break with a .467 BA and three doubles.
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