![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/rick-porcello-tigers-932.jpg\")
<\/a>Boston is starting to turn into the club that everyone feared in Major League Baseball and come into Friday night\u2019s contest having scored 14 runs in back-to-back games.\u00a0 \u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten a lot better than our first two weeks,\u201d said catcher Jason Varitek.\u00a0 \u201cWe still survive on how well we start with out pitching and allow that offense to get going.\u00a0 Today was another day where the offense got going right away.\u201d\u00a0 Outfielder Carl Crawford has been igniting the offense and has produced consecutive four-hit games for the first time in his career.\u00a0 He has lifted his batting average from .212 to .244 in the span of just two days.\u00a0 The Red Sox lead the Majors in average, runs and hits this month, which has directly resulted into a league-best 17-7 record in May.\u00a0 Boston is 17-5 when playing against a team with a winning record.<\/p>\n
Red Sox starting pitcher Tim Wakefield is set to make his 13th appearance (fourth start) of the season and earned his 194th career win on May 22 against the Cubs at Fenway Park.\u00a0 In that particular start, he allowed one run on four hits over 6 2\/3 innings.\u00a0 The right-hander will starting for the first time this year on the road, registering a 2.84 ERA in five relief appearances, giving up two runs and five hits over 6 1\/3 innings.\u00a0 Wakefield will be facing the Tigers for the 37th time in his career (24th start), entering with a 16-10 mark and 4.25 ERA, including a 4-3 record and 4.19 ERA at Comerica Park.<\/p>\n
Detroit has still won 13 of the club\u2019s last 20 games dating back to May 3 despite Thursday\u2019s defeat and have a good chance in bouncing back considering its 116-68 record at Comerica Park since the start of the 2009 season.\u00a0 The Tigers offense is still a force to be reckoned with and has collected 59 doubles in the team\u2019s last 30 games, dating back to April 22.\u00a0 Detroit entered Thursday\u2019s game fourth in the AL with 92 two-batters on the season.\u00a0 Catcher Victor Martinez will look to keep things going from the plate, entering the series batting .339 with two home runs and 16 RBI in 18 games during May.\u00a0 Detroit is 13-19 versus right-handed starters this season.<\/p>\n
Tigers starting pitcher Rick Porcello is 4-2 with a 3.08 ERA in eight starts this season and has issued just 13 walks and compiled 30 strikeouts in 49 2\/3 innings.\u00a0 The right-hander enters on a four-game win streak and comes directly off his best outing of the 2011 campaign thus far, tallying a 2-0 road victory over the Pirates, tossing eight shutout innings and surrendering just a single hit.\u00a0 Porcello is an even 1-1 with a 5.25 ERA in two home starts, as opponents are hitting .333 against him.\u00a0 He will be facing the Red Sox for the third time in his young career, bringing in a 0-1 record and 6.75 ERA.<\/p>\n
Bettors will likely back the Tigers due to their 17-5 record at home versus winning teams, while the Red Sox are 2-7 in Wakefield\u2019s last nine road starts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Boston Red Sox clobbered the Detroit Tigers in the first game of a weekend series and look to continue their May run at Comerica Park Boston Red Sox at Detroit Tigers Boston is starting to turn into the club that everyone feared in Major League Baseball and come into Friday night\u2019s contest having scored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[69,2743,2126,48,2371,882,1030],"class_list":["post-15814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-carl-crawford","tag-comerica-park","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-rick-porcello","tag-tim-wakefield","tag-victor-martinez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15814","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=15814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15816,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15814\/revisions\/15816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}