{"id":15045,"date":"2011-04-21T08:35:09","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T13:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15045"},"modified":"2011-04-21T08:35:09","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T13:35:09","slug":"al-showdown-boston-red-sox-at-los-angeles-angels-free-mlb-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/al-showdown-boston-red-sox-at-los-angeles-angels-free-mlb-picks-15045\/","title":{"rendered":"AL Showdown: Boston Red Sox at Los Angeles Angels Free MLB Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox picked up their first road win of the season Thursday and now head to Southern California to take on the Los Angeles Angels this weekend<\/p>\n

Boston Red Sox at Los Angeles Angels<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Los Angeles Angels lead the American League Western Division heading into the weekend<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston didn\u2019t score in its two previous games away from Fenway Park and were a franchise-worst 0-7 on the road before picking up a 5-3 win over Oakland.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a little late, but it feels good,\u201d manager Terry Francona stated.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to try to stay in the moment and win.\u201d\u00a0 The Red Sox continue a 10-day, nine-game road trip and are currently 1-4 versus American League West opponents this year.\u00a0 The team is still waiting for offseason acquisition Carl Crawford to break out, but he was able to contribute an RBI single in the second inning and has shown signs of breaking a current 2-for-20 slump.\u00a0 \u201cIt feels good to contribute any time,\u201d Crawford commented.\u00a0 Boston is 2-6 versus right-handed starters this year and a road favorite on the MLB lines page.<\/p>\n

Red Sox starting pitcher Josh Beckett is 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA in three starts this year and has compiled a 2-0 mark and 0.60 ERA over his last two outings.\u00a0 The right-hander has allowed just five hits in 49 at-bats during the last two games and held opponents to a .102 batting average.\u00a0 \u201cHow many starts do we have to go and then we forget about last year,\u201d Beckett stated.\u00a0 \u201cI know I stunk last year.\u00a0 We all know that.\u00a0 I think maybe we need to move forward a little bit.\u201d\u00a0 He has gone at least six innings in all four career starts at Angel Stadium, going 2-2 with a 4.00 ERA.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles is coming off a successful 5-1 road trip that has led the team to the top of the American League West standings.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re a long way away from where we need to be for the long haul,\u201d manager Mike Scioscia stated.\u00a0 The Angels went 4-2 on their first homestand this year, but hit just .214 while averaging 2.8 runs.\u00a0 Los Angeles will need to play much better at home to have success in this series when considering it went 1-9 versus Boston in 2010.\u00a0 In fact, the Red Sox sweep at Angel Stadium last year snapped the Angels\u2019 streak of 79 consecutive home series without being swept.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 100-73 at home the past three years.<\/p>\n

Angels starting pitcher Tyler Chatwood will face the Red Sox for the first time in his career Thursday and just earned his first win with a 7-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox.\u00a0 The rookie right-hander is an even 1-1 with a 3.75 ERA in two starts this season, allowing three home runs in 12 innings of work.\u00a0 He must continue attacking hitters to continue being successful on the mound during his stint with the big club.\u00a0 \u201cThe game plan was to attack hitters and that\u2019s what he did,\u201d catcher Hank Conger said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s fun that he came out with his first win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Angels due to their 5-0 record versus right-handed starters, while the Red Sox are 1-10 on the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox picked up their first road win of the season Thursday and now head to Southern California to take on the Los Angeles Angels this weekend Boston Red Sox at Los Angeles Angels Boston didn\u2019t score in its two previous games away from Fenway Park and were a franchise-worst 0-7 on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1642,69,350,479,4883],"class_list":["post-15045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-angel-stadium","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-josh-beckett","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-tyler-chatwood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15045","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15046,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15045\/revisions\/15046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}