{"id":16123,"date":"2011-06-16T09:55:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16123"},"modified":"2011-06-16T09:55:44","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:55:44","slug":"al-east-battle-boston-red-sox-at-tampa-bay-rays-major-league-baseball-handicapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/al-east-battle-boston-red-sox-at-tampa-bay-rays-major-league-baseball-handicapping-16123\/","title":{"rendered":"AL East Battle: Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball Handicapping"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays close out a three-game series between American League East rivals Thursday night at Tropicana Field<\/p>\n

Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Tampa Bay Rays have won 25 of their last 30 games versus division opponents with SP David Price on the hill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston received a dominant pitching performance from starting pitcher Josh Beckett in last night\u2019s 3-0 road victory over Tampa Bay and enters Thursday\u2019s series finale with a 1 1\/2-game lead over New York.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s about as good as you can pitch,\u201d said Red Sox manager Terry Francona about Beckett\u2019s performance.\u00a0 \u201cHe didn\u2019t walk anybody.\u00a0 That was fun to watch.\u201d\u00a0 The Red Sox own the best record in the American League and have won 26 of their last 35 tilts.\u00a0 The club has been ultra-impressive in June, leading the Majors with a 9-2 mark.\u00a0 Boston is 23-6 when playing against a team with a winning record this season and 24-22 on artificial turf over the last three years.<\/p>\n

Red Sox starting pitcher Clay Buchholz earned a 5-1 win in his last outing, snapping a career-long streak of four no-decisions.\u00a0 The right-hander is 5-3 with a 3.59 ERA in 13 starts this season and has not walked more than two batters in any of his last nine starts since April 26 at Baltimore, the longest such stretch of his career.\u00a0 Buchholz will be making his first start against the Rays in 2011 after going 1-1 with a 0.98 ERA in three outings last year.\u00a0 His career 1.81 ERA versus Tampa Bay is his lowest versus any Major League team he has faced.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay finds itself 4 1\/2 games back in the American League East race and has alternated wins and losses in its last 10 home contests.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s why I think this race is going back and forth,\u201d Rays manager Joe Maddon stated.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t see one team running away and hiding at any point.\u201d\u00a0 The Rays will quickly need to solve their problems against the top teams in the league, posting a 12-23 mark against clubs over .500, while going 24-9 versus losing clubs.\u00a0 Tampa Bay still leads the season series 3-1 over Boston and has proven victorious in 10 of the last 14 meetings overall.\u00a0 Over the last three years, Maddon\u2019s squad has registered a 97-72 record against division opponents.<\/p>\n

Rays starting pitcher David Price is 7-5 with a 3.51 ERA in 14 starts this season and is coming off a no-decision effort last time out.\u00a0 He allowed four runs and eight hits over six frames in a 7-5 road win over the Orioles.\u00a0 The left-hander enters with an even 3-3 mark and 3.19 ERA in seven home outings, surrendering just two home runs in 48 frames.\u00a0 In six career starts versus the Red Sox, Price has tallied a winning 4-2 record and 3.18 ERA, allowing opponents to hit for just a .237 average.\u00a0 Left-handed batters are hitting just .163 against him this season.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Rays due to their 25-5 record versus the American League East, while the Red Sox are 2-5 in Buchholz\u2019s last seven outings against the division<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays close out a three-game series between American League East rivals Thursday night at Tropicana Field Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays Boston received a dominant pitching performance from starting pitcher Josh Beckett in last night\u2019s 3-0 road victory over Tampa Bay and enters Thursday\u2019s series finale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2889,69,1023,397,150,1574],"class_list":["post-16123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-american-league-east","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-clay-buchholz","tag-david-price","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16123","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=16123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16124,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16123\/revisions\/16124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}