{"id":14897,"date":"2011-04-13T12:51:28","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T17:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14897"},"modified":"2011-04-13T12:51:28","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T17:51:28","slug":"battle-of-struggling-powerhouses-tampa-bay-rays-at-boston-red-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/battle-of-struggling-powerhouses-tampa-bay-rays-at-boston-red-sox-14897\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of Struggling Powerhouses: Tampa Bay Rays At Boston Red Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Boston Red Sox<\/strong>
\nApril 13, 2011 at 7:10 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Runline:\u00a0 BOS -1.5 +130, TAM +1.5 -150<\/strong>
\nCurrent Runline:\u00a0 BOS -1.5 +135, TAM +1.5 -155<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 BOS -160, TAM +140<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 BOS -148, TAMP +138<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 9.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 9.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 TAM- J. Shields, BOS- J. Lackey<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
James Shields will take the mound tonight <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the Yankees’ series, it appeared the Red Sox were beginning to get things together.\u00a0 A matchup against another struggling but good team did not prove to be the elixer.\u00a0 Tampa Bay has won the first two matchups of this series – the first a rout, and they yesterday – a 3 to 2 victory.\u00a0 David Price allowed only 2 runs and 5 hits in 7 2\/3rds innnings and his win gave the Red Sox their worst record in line with the 1925, 1927, and 1996 teams.<\/p>\n

Losing pitcher Jon Lester was understandably frustrated by the lack of run support.\u00a0 \u201cWe need a night like they had (Monday) night,\u201d Lester said. \u201cWe need a night where we show up and just pound the baseball and we do everything right. \u2026 We\u2019re just not putting everything together. One night it\u2019s the pitching. One night it\u2019s the hitting. Some nights it\u2019s both. Nothing right now is clicking for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boston’s starter John Lackey was signed to a 5 year $82.5 M dollar contract and so far he has posted a 15.58 ERA and allowed 336 baserunners since the start of 2010, the absolute worst in the entire majors over that span of time.\u00a0 Of the 17 hits Lackey has allowed this year, 13 have been extra base hits.\u00a0 He got a win he didn’t truly deserve on Friday when he gave up 6 runs in 5 innings, but was bailed out by the hot hitting offense posting 9 runs of their own.\u00a0 Lackey’s PECOTA projection calls for a 12-10 record with a 4.13 ERA.\u00a0 He must radically improve his pitching to have a chance of falling under 4, or even near 4, given his recent performances.<\/p>\n

James Shields had a similar fate in his opener.\u00a0 He, too, was bailed out by the offense, though he failed to record a decision.\u00a0 A no decision can be thought of as a gift when a pitcher gives up 6 runs in 5 innings, so Shields 0-1record could and should really be 0-2\u00a0 His ERA is respectable at 4.73.\u00a0 In his 16 starts against the Red Sox, Shields is 5-9 with a 5.17 ERA in 16 starts.\u00a0 James Shields PECOTA projections predict a 13-10 record with a 4.02 ERA.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 20 of Tampa’s last 24 games and the Rays are 3-9 SU in their last 12 games.\u00a0 The total has also gone UNDER in 9 of Tampa’s last 12 games on the road and the Rays are 7-3 SU in their last 10 games on the road.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 4 of Tampa’s last 5 games against the Red Sox.\u00a0 The Rays are 9-3 SU in their last 12 games against Boston and the total has gone OVER in 7 of Tampa’s last 8 games on the road against Boston.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is 8-3 SU in their last 11 road games against the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER in 10 of Boston’s last 15 games and the Red Sox are 2-9 SU in their last 11 games.\u00a0 The total has also gone OVER In 6 of the Red Sox’s last 8 games at home and it has also gone OVER in 4 of their last 5 games against the Tampa Bay Rays.\u00a0 Boston is 3-9 SU in their last 12 against Tampa Bay and they are 3-8 SU in their last 11 at home against Tampa.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In of Boston’s last 8 games at home against the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n

Given Lackey’s horrible pitching, Boston may have trouble winning this one.\u00a0 He must get control over his pitches if he is going to have success with Tampa’s lineup, struggling though they may be.\u00a0 Obviously, Tampa is praying on Longoria coming back and fixing all these problems, but they must realize at this point that they need more production from the guys that actually are healthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Boston Red Sox April 13, 2011 at 7:10 PM EST Opening Runline:\u00a0 BOS -1.5 +130, TAM +1.5 -150 Current Runline:\u00a0 BOS -1.5 +135, TAM +1.5 -155 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 BOS -160, TAM +140 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 BOS -148, TAMP +138 Opening Total:\u00a0 9.5 Current Total: 9.5 SP:\u00a0 TAM- J. Shields, BOS- J. Lackey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[69,150],"class_list":["post-14897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14897"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14899,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14897\/revisions\/14899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}