Rays @ Redsox Preview: An Important Makeup Game

Last week, the four-game series between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays was back and forth. The Rays took the first game, the Sox the second and the Rays took the third.  Unfortunately, the game that would decide whether they were going to split the series was rained-out and postponed.  Today, we will find out if Boston will split the series with the Rays or if the Rays will take this series and also be taking the lead in the AL East.

It was a series that we said was going to be the test of whether or not the Rays were the real deal or not. after getting two out of three wins against the Red Sox and winning a three-game series against the Yankees, the Rays are only .5 games behind the Red Sox and are well on their way to proving their doubters, like myself, wrong; perhaps it is only one win away.

Both the starting pitchers will be very familiar with the other team as they just pitched against one another last week.

David Price will be starting for the Rays.  In his last outing Price just fell short of doing something that very few pitchers have ever done:  shutout the Red Sox.  Only four other pitchers have ever done that.  Today he gets a second chance to get it done.

The game where he just fell shy of shutting out the Sox, he threw strike after strike.  Out of the 97 pitches he threw in the game 72 of them were strikes.

In his last five starts he has an ERA of 1.76, striking out 27 batters and walking just one.

The Rays, overall, have been hot.  They’ve won 21 of their last 25 games.  They have been criticized by many that this is the product of an easy schedule but with each win the Rays are making that argument seem less credible.

The Red Sox will be starting Felix Doubront.  Doubront has been impressive in his own right, going 13 straight starts without allowing more than three earned runs.  He pitched against the Rays last week, holding them to just three runs on six hits over 6 2/3 innings.

Over at Bovada, the Red Sox are the underdogs with a moneyline at +107.  The Rays moneyline is at -117.  The game starts at 6:10 p.m. ET.