Red Sox 07 Game 104

			@
J. Lester		1-0, 3.00		J. Shields		8-6, 4.44
Red Sox		63-40		Devil Rays		38-64

Saturday, July 28    Tropicana Field ✠ 7:10 PM ET

American League

East	W	L	GB	L 10	X W	X L
Boston	63	40	-	7-3	64	39
New York	55	48	8.0	6-4	62	41
Toronto	51	51	11.5	6-4	54	48
Baltimore	48	54	14.5	7-3	52	50
Tampa	38	64	24.5	2-8	37	65

ESPN.Com Preview .
Yahoo's Preview .
ESPN.Com after the game Recap.
MLB.Com Press Pass
From MLB.Com Scouting Report

Red Sox: Lester made a successful comeback start to the Major Leagues on July 23 in Cleveland, giving up five hits and two runs over six innings while fanning six. Lester made 17 starts in the Minor Leagues this season, going 4-5 with a 3.61 ERA. This is Lester's first career start against the Devil Rays.

Devil Rays: Shields experienced the worst outing of his career Sunday afternoon against the Yankees when he allowed 10 runs on 10 hits in 3 1/3 innings to take his sixth loss. Shields has been the Rays' best pitcher all season, effectively using a fastball, changeup, curve, and cutter to retire hitters. The changeup remains his best pitch. He is 0-1 with a 6.10 ERA in two starts 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.

Sox Batting vs Shields

Player	AB	H	2b	3b	HR's	RBI	BB's	K's	BA
J. Lugo	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
K. Youkilis	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	.000
D. Ortiz	5	2	0	0	2	3	1	0	.400
M. Ramirez	4	1	0	0	1	2	2	3	.250
J.D. Drew	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
M. Lowell	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	.500
J. Varitek	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
C. Crisp	5	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	.200
D. Pedroia	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Totals	20	5	0	0	3	5	3	7	.250

Not a lot of history vs Shields for this team. What history there is says that when the do hit him, they hit him well. Even the bench doesn't have a lot of history with Cora, Mirabelli and Pena being the only ones to have faced him. Combined the three are 2 for 5 with one home run, one walk and two strike outs. The good news is they have faced him in the past, so he is not completely unknown to these hitters.

Pitching Comparisions

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Shields Vs Sox	2	0	1	0	10 1/3	9	7	4	5	12	6.10	1.35	5.17
Shields last 5	5	2	3	0	30 1/3	39	23	5	6	21	6.82	1.48	6.07

Lester has never faced the Devil Rays.

Though his record isn't very good against the Sox he has done better this year as he has cut way down on his walks. In the last five games he has two quality starts against Cleveland and the Angels, two very good teams. He also though was smacked around against the spankees.

In two starts vs the Yankees he has pitched 9 1/3 innings allowing 15 earned runs. Those starts came at New York on the 22nd and in Tampa on the 12th. Take those two games out and he went 21 innings with a 3.43 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP. Those are very good numbers, so he can be tough to hit this year. Still, I expect the Sox to hit him pretty good the Question of the Day is how will Lester fare against this line up?

Overall the Devil Rays are hitting .278/.344/.466 vs lefties. That is quite an improvement over their .260/.329/.411 vs right handed pitchers. Those numbers vs left handed pitchers improve at Tropicana Field, as they have hit .281/.345/.497 at home. This just might turn into a slug fest! Well, actually, I expect it to turn into a slug fest as I expect a huge let down from Lester with at least two bases loaded situations in the four innings that I expect him to pitch. Would be nice if he proved me wrong but I sincerely doubt that he will make it to the fourth inning.

♊ - When all else fails, get a bigger hammer!