Red Sox 07 Game 47

Friday, May 25 Rangers Ballpark in Arlington 8:05 PM ET

Bos Daisuke Matzuaka, RHP (6-2, 4.06)

                @

Tex Brandon McCarthy, RHP (4-4, 5.82)

AL East Standings

Team	W	L	GB	L 10	X W	X L
Boston	31	15		6-4	30	16
New York	21	24	9.5	4-6	25	20
Toronto	21	25	10	6-4	22	24
Baltimore	21	26	10.5	3-7	22	25
Tampa Bay	19	27	12	5-5	17	29

ESPN.Com preview should be here.
Yahoo's preview should be here.
The recap after the game will be here.
UPDATE: MLB.Com Press Pass is here.
From MLB.Com Scouting Report

Red Sox: Matsuzaka is on fire. In his last three starts, he's 3-0 with a 1.87 ERA. Matsuzaka has gone at least seven innings in all of those starts. In his last two starts, he hasn't walked a batter. Matsuzaka has lowered his ERA from 5.45 to 4.06 in a span of three starts. He is holding opponents to a .235 average. This will be Matsuzaka's first career start against the Rangers.

Rangers: He's 3-0 with a 2.31 ERA in his last four games, holding opponents to a .202 batting average. That's a complete turnaround from April when he was 1-4 with a 9.90 ERA and opponents hit .356 off him. The big difference has been putting his fastball in the spot where he wants it, using his changup effectively and making adjustments quickly before innings get out of control. He is 2-1 with a 6.23 ERA in three starts at home this year. He is 1-1 with a 2.03 ERA in four games, including one start, in his career against the Red Sox.

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

Player	AB	H	2b	3b	4b	RBI	BB	K	BA
J. Lugo	3	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	.333
K. Youkilis	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
D. Ortiz	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
M. Ramirez	6	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.167
J.D. Drew	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
M. Lowell	1	1	0	0	1	1	0	0	1.000
J. Varitek	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	.000
C. Crisp	5	2	1	0	1	1	0	0	.400
D. Pedroia	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Totals	30	5	1	0	2	2	3	3	.167

As you can see not a lot of history here. The bench players also don't have a lot of history either as Cora is the only one to have faced Brandon in the past and he is 0 for 1. Still this is one of the top hitting clubs in baseball and the Sox usually bat well in the Park at Arlington. 340 for 1,245 with a slugging pct of .459 and 0ba of .354 with 46 home runs.

Historical Pitching line

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA
Matsuzaka	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---
McCarthy	1	1	1	0	13 1/3	8	3	3	3	9	2.03

McCarthy's only start against the Sox was in September of 2005 at Fenway Park. He went 7 innings of 3 hit ball with 7 k's and no runs for the Win. As the scouting report states, both of the pitchers are on fire and are 3 - 0 in their last 3 (Daisuke) and 4 (McCarthy) games. With sparkling ERA's in those games. This could be a very good pitching match up tonight.

Chow!