American League East Battle: Red Sox vs. Rays at Fenway Park

SportsGrid

Watch American League East Battle: Red Sox vs. Rays at Fenway Park - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00inside Fenway Park between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays should be a really good

00:05one for two teams right now squarely in position in the AL wildcard race to be a playoff team the

00:11Red Sox and the Mariners technically tied for that third and final AL wildcard spot if it were to go

00:17to Boston at this moment the three AL wildcard teams would all be from the same division Yankees

00:24Rays Red Sox all from the American League East Boston beat up on the Colorado Rockies this week

00:31playing 29 runs in total in three games the Red Sox have won six straight will they continue those

00:38winning ways today against the Rays in Fenway Tampa an ever so slight favorite Taj Bradley gets the

00:44start for the Rays on the other side for the Sox it is Walker Bueller total is nine how does this

00:50American League East divisional duel begin tonight in Beantown we'll get to Boston in just a moment

00:56here but I do want to focus on the lineup here for the Tampa Bay Rays has been very good this season

01:00which is great a little bit downturn there in Detroit but bounced back yesterday with a solid

01:04performance that solid performance should continue today I'm being honest now if we looked at the

01:08temperatures or the Colorado Rockies series versus the Boston Red Sox in Boston it was really good it

01:13was 80 degree temperatures the winds were blowing out that's a small ballpark and my goodness was Boston

01:18capitalizing on that 67 degrees at first pitch it's not like we're getting back to the early

01:22April days of hey 52 degrees and a wind blowing in it's still going to be okay but the problem here

01:28for Boston is not that the weather is dropping it's that Walker Bueller is on the mound that's not

01:32something you're supposed to say when you acquired Walker Bueller like hey this guy's going to get back

01:36to this form that we saw him with the Dodgers he's horrendous you look at his last 60 days a 133

01:41XFIP minus an ERA of close to eight an XFIP of 5.43 you look at his last 30 days and 115

01:47batters he's faced a 219 ISO against combined which is terrible and a 409 weighted on base

01:52percentage Walker Bueller striking out under 15% of the batters that he's faced this should be

01:57another bullseye target moment for the Tampa Bay bats now if you look at Tampa Bay side on the

02:03mound themselves is Taj Bradley he himself hasn't had a very good season if you look at his numbers

02:08analytically it's not bad Ben it's a 92 XFIP minus and a 3.78 XFIP his ERA is at a 5.05 so he's getting

02:17a little bit unlucky but he's not striking out the the rate that we thought he would have throughout

02:21his major league baseball career matter of fact over the past 30 days Ben it's listed at 17%

02:26his ISO numbers are decent to right-handed batters you got to like that but also sometimes you're just

02:31betting based on upon what you saw are we thinking that the Red Sox are going from 10 runs going down

02:36to one run it's not Sandy Koufax on the mound that's reincarnated out here it's Taj Bradley the guy

02:41can be hit so I look at the total and say there's a better chance this total goes over now if you're done you got to

02:46pick a side it would be Tampa Bay because Taj is a better pitcher than Walker Bueller but that lineup

02:51is hot they're at home they're ready nothing's changed like sometimes Ben you look at a team

02:54like boy they were hot in Oakland wonder how they do or hot in Sacramento when they come home

02:59they've been home they've been cruising they're in the comfortable spot right now the Boston Red Sox

03:03at the plate Masataka Yoshida back yesterday for the Sox as well three of four at the dish and an

03:10RBI Roman Anthony two of four Carlos Nervais might actually be the best performing rookie this year

03:16for the Red Sox a home run Boston 29 runs at least scoring nine in all three games against

03:22the Rockies this week they beat up on the Nationals swept Washington this weekend beat up on the Rockies

03:28swept Colorado when you play the bad teams you need to take advantage how about a divisional mate

03:33slightly in front of you in the AL wild card race baseball is a quirky game DRS as we know

03:39yesterday the Blue Jays winners of 10 straight hottest team in baseball go into Chicago hefty favorite

03:45against the White Sox Adrian Hauser deals snaps that 10 game winning streak for the Jays the

03:51Guardians had dropped 10 in a row entering their midweek set this week against Houston and the Astros

03:57were the best team since the beginning of June 1st entering this week 24 and 8 so what happened over

04:02the previous three nights in Houston the Guardians won all three a divisional duel starts tonight on the

04:08south side between the Guardians and the White Sox a final four game set over the weekend entering the

04:14all-star break what gives tonight between Chicago and Cleveland and both of these teams really aren't

04:19very good at the plate both pitchers here aren't very good you see that eight and a half total 78 degree

04:24temperatures light wind blowing in from right field but usually say like okay maybe the Cleveland

04:29batters have woken up I still can't trust that but even if they've woken up the White Sox never wake up at

04:35the plate at this point so two bad pitchers these two teams I think will fumble around today I just go

04:40under I don't think we get nine runs between these two ball clubs and we'll leave it at that not a

04:44great game not a great lineup I'll lean under ugly game four to three you take your chips and you go

04:49home with a win

Category

Transcript

Recommended