The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees renew their competition on Tuesday, 9/18/18 as the divisional rivals open a three game set at Yankee stadium.
The Red Sox have won six out of their last seven games and a now just two wins away from clinching their 3rd straight American League title. Meanwhile, Boston currently leads their season series 8-5 but you know that the Yankees are too proud to just waive the white flag. This should be another exciting game between these stories teams.
The Yankees are the only team that are still mathematically capable of catching up with Boston. But with New York still trailing by 11.5 games, it appears that the only way the Yankees make the playoffs is via the wild card. New York is currently 1.5 games up on the Oakland A’s and seven over Tampa Bay.
For the Red Sox, it will be Nathan Eovaldi who will take the mound. The 28 year old right hander has started in a total of 18 games this season and has a record of of 5-7 with an ERA of 4.22 and a WHIP of 1.18.
Eovaldi was impressive in his most recent outing at Fenway Park last August 4, 2018 as he pitched eight scoreless innings while allowing just three hits and one walk with four punchouts. He earned the win as Boston defeated their rivals 4-1. In the course of his career, Eovaldi has a 10-5 record with an ERA of 3.85 at Yankee Stadium.
But after earning wins in his first two starts with the Red Sox, Eovaldi has been on a funk as he has gone 0-3 in his last seven starts while allowing 26 runs on 43 hits over that period. He has not pitched more than 5 innings during that stretch and the Red Sox are just 3-4 in those games.
Mookie Betts has hit one grand slam against Yankees starter J.A. Happ this season although he is only 1-6 against the left hander. JD Martinez is only 1 for 5 with three strikeouts against Happ this season.
The Red Sox have won six out of their last seven games and a now just two wins away from clinching their 3rd straight American League title.
While wins have been hard to come for Eovaldi, J.A. Happ has been winning since he was acquired by the Yankees last July. Happ is 6-0 with in 8 starts with an ERA of 2.70 since coming over to New York. The Yankees have won all but one of those games.
For the season, Happ has started a total of 28 games. He has an impressive record of 16-6 with an ERA of 3.75 and a WHIP of 1.13.He ranks 4th in the American League in win percentage (.727) and fifth in wins for the season. He looks to continue his strong run as the starter for the Yankees on Tuesday.
In his last outing, Happ threw six scoreless innings to earn a win over the Twins last Monday. 67% of the pitches he threw were for strikes including first pitch strikes to 15 out of 23 hitters faced. Happ has allowed two earned runs or fewer in five of his last six starts while providing quality starts in three out of his last four assignments.
Didi Gregorius has gone 3 for 7 against Eovaldi this season with one homerun. The only other Yankee to score an RBI against Eovaldi this season is Giancarlo Stanton who is 1-5 against the Red Sox pitcher.
The Red Sox have won the last four meetings between these teams but the Yankees have won six out of their last eight meetings at Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox are also 0-4 on the road when playing teams who are .600 at home. Meanwhile, the Yankees are 37-15 in a game following a loss. They are also 8-2 in their last 10 games against their American League East rivals. New York has also been very good at home, going 68-29 in their last 97 home games overall.
The Red Sox are the best team in all of baseball but they have not been scoring well as of late, generating just a total of 14 runs in their last 5 games while starting to rest some of their regular guys. Eovaldi hasn’t been on target lately while Happ has been a “happy” acquisition for the Yankees and he is 4-0 in four starts at Yankee stadium. We’re picking the New York Yankees to beat the Boston Red Sox on 9/18/18.
The run total has been set at 9 and we think that both offenses can cover that total given that they have combined for more than 10 runs in half of their last six meetings
The Yankees have scored more than five runs per game in their last five games and have drilled 8 home runs over that period. The total has gone over in 4 out of the Yankees last 6 games and 4-1 in Happ’s last five starts. While the Red Sox haven’t been as prolific with their scoring lately, they are averaging 5.4 runs per game in their last 10 meetings against the Yankees. Also, Eovaldi has allowed an average of 3.85 runs per game at Yankee Stadium throughout his career so this has the makings of a high scoring affair. Prediction: Over 9 runs
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