Red Sox 07 Game 17

7:19 - UPDATE - Wily Mo in center, Coco scratched due to oblique problem as reported by the Globe.
7:30 - UPDATe - Press Pass available here.

Sunday, April 22 Fenway Park 8:05 PM ET
NYY Chase Wright, LHP (1-0, 5.40) Yankees (8-8) @ BOS Daisuke Matsuzaka, RHP (1-2, 2.70) Red Sox (11-5)

Boston 1 1/2 games ahead Baltimore, 3 Games ahead of NYY and 3 1/2 games ahead of Toronto. 3rd game of 3 game series Boston leads 2 - 0.

ESPN.Com preview should be here.
Yahoo's preview should be here.
The recap after the game will be here.

From MLB.Com Scouting Report:

Red Sox: Matsuzaka is trying to snap a two-game losing streak, though he pitched well enough to win in both starts. Matsuzaka has given up three earned runs or fewer in all three of his outings. Control betrayed him in his start against the Blue Jays on Tuesday, when he walked three batters in the fourth inning of a 2-1 loss. This will be Matsuzaka's first career appearance against the Yankees, officially entering the storied rivalry.

Yankees: Wright is making his second big-league appearance, earning it with a solid five-inning effort in a win over Cleveland on Tuesday. Wright, 24, called up from Double-A to start that game, gave up three runs on five hits and three walks while striking out three.

As usual all statistics were found at the day by day database at Baseball Musings and this year at Baseball Reference.

Expected Batters vs opposing starter
Has never faced any of the batters.

Historical Pitching lines
Never faced these teams before

Since there is no history for either of these pitchers vs batters or team I thought I would add this table showing how badly the bats have performed in Daisuke's starts:

Situation	AB	H	2b	3b	HR	RBI	BB	K	BA	OBP	Slug
Daisuke Starts	97	19	6	0	1	3	5	19	.196	.235	.289
Other Starts	297	80	20	1	7	49	44	53	.269	.365	.414

As you can see there is quite a difference in the BA, OBP and Slugging. If they had just done the same in his starts as they have in the other starts he would have had 12 more runs to play with in his 3 starts. Since he held the other teams to 3 runs or less that would have made quite a difference. Just something to think about.

Predictions - Which batters will show up? The ones who are averaging 5 runs per game (all games) or the ones who are averaging 1.667 per Daisuke's starts. My bet is on the batters showing up and putting up a 5 spot. The question is can Daisuke hold the Yankees to less than 5? Will be interesting.