{"id":16479,"date":"2011-07-17T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-17T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16479"},"modified":"2011-07-17T10:21:20","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T15:21:20","slug":"sunday-night-baseball-boston-red-sox-at-tampa-bay-rays-al-east-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/sunday-night-baseball-boston-red-sox-at-tampa-bay-rays-al-east-rivalry-16479\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Night Baseball: Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays AL East Rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays close out an American League East series Sunday night in front of a nationally-televised audience at Tropicana Field<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>
The Boston Red Sox are 11-2 over their last 13 games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston captured its first victory following the All-Star break Saturday afternoon and is 11-2 over its last 13 games overall.\u00a0 Over that span, the Red Sox offense has hammered opposing pitchers, scoring 6.7 runs a contest and hitting .315 with runners in scoring position.\u00a0 The club also owns the second-best record this month due to leading the majors in home runs and on-base percentage.\u00a0 \u201cWe did a good job just grinding it out,\u201d Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia said of the 9-5 win yesterday.\u00a0 \u201cWe just found a way to get a couple big hits.\u201d\u00a0 Boston is an astounding 30-11 when playing against a team with a winning record and 6-4 on artificial turf.<\/p>\n

Red Sox starting pitcher Josh Beckett is 8-3 with a 2.27 ERA in 17 starts this season and will attempt to withstand a lingering left knee injury that kept him from pitching in Tuesday\u2019s All-Star game.\u00a0 \u201cI could have pitched.\u00a0 I\u2019m just not comfortable going out there and getting hurt and costing myself starts in the second half,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 The right-hander has tallied a 5-3 mark and 2.66 ERA in 10 road starts, as opponents are hitting just .187 against him.\u00a0 Beckett will be making his second start of the year against the Rays, tossing a complete-game, one-hit shutout on June 15 at Tropicana Field.\u00a0 He is 8-4 overall with a 3.15 ERA in 17 lifetime outings against them.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay was unable to hold a 3-0 first-inning lead yesterday and fell six games back in the divisional race because of it.\u00a0 The Rays had eight of their first 11 hitters reach base Saturday, but was unable to capitalize fully, hitting into two double plays.\u00a0 \u201cThe double plays took us out of some momentum, because we really had a chance to put them away,\u201d said Rays manager Joe Maddon.\u00a0 The club dropped back to 22-22 at home and is now 33-6 when scoring five or more runs this year.\u00a0 Since the beginning of 2008, the Rays are 21-11 against the Red Sox at tonight\u2019s venue and 121-96 after the All-Star break.<\/p>\n

Rays starting pitcher Jeff Niemann is 4-4 with a 4.53 ERA in 10 starts this season and earned a 5-1 win over the Yankees in the Bronx last time out.\u00a0 In that outing, the right-hander allowed just a single run and six hits over 7 1\/3 innings.\u00a0 Niemann has won back-to-back starts for the first time since July 28-Aug 3 last year and has never won three consecutive outings in his career.\u00a0 He has disappointed at home this season, posting a 1-3 mark and 5.53 ERA in five appearances.\u00a0 In four career starts versus the Red Sox, he has registered an even 2-2 record and 6.62 ERA.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Red Sox due to their 35-17 record in Beckett\u2019s starts as a road favorite, while the Rays are 0-4 in Niemann\u2019s four efforts as a home underdog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays close out an American League East series Sunday night in front of a nationally-televised audience at Tropicana Field Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays Boston captured its first victory following the All-Star break Saturday afternoon and is 11-2 over its last 13 games overall.\u00a0 Over that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2889,69,857,1943,350,150,1574],"class_list":["post-16479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-american-league-east","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-dustin-pedroia","tag-jeff-niemann","tag-josh-beckett","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16479","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=16479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16481,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16479\/revisions\/16481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}