Red Sox 07 Game 90

			@
D. McGowan		5-4, 4.65		D. Matsuzaka		10-6, 3.84
Blue Jays		44-45		Red Sox		54-35

Saturday, July 14    Fenway Park  7:05 PM ET

American League

East	W	L	GB	L 10	X W	X L
Boston	54	35	-	5-5	54	35
Toronto	44	45	10.0	5-5	46	43
New York	43	44	10.0	6-4	50	37
Baltimore	39	50	15.0	4-6	43	46
Tampa	35	54	19.0	2-8	34	55

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

Blue Jays: In his last outing, McGowan recovered from a rough start against the Mariners to finish his West Coast performance with a bang. The 25-year-old didn't allow a run over seven innings against the Athletics en route to his fifth win of the season. McGowan is now 2-1 with a 2.14 ERA in his past three starts. He is 1-0 with 0.00 ERA in two appearances against Boston over his three-year career.

Red Sox: Matsuzaka definitely didn't have his command in a 6-5 loss to the Detroit Tigers on July 8, the final game before the All-Star Break. His fastball was up and got too much of the plate, as he allowed six runs on 10 hits, including a season-high three home runs, in five innings. That was definitely a departure from most of his starts this season. But Matsuzaka is a polished pitcher, depsite being in his first Major League season, and he should bounce back.

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

Sox Batting vs McGowan

Player	AB	H	2b	3b	HR's	RBI	BB's	K's	BA
J.D. Drew	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
D. Pedroia	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
D. Ortiz	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	.000
M. Ramirez	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
K. Youkilis	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
M. Lowell	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	1.000
J. Varitek	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
C. Crisp	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	.000
J. Lugo	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Totals	7	1	0	0	0	1	0	2	.143

Not a lot of history here for the bats. Of course that is to be expected since McGowan has only made two appearances and both of those were in relief. Still, he is a right handed pitcher and they have seen him before, so they should not be surprised by anything that he throws at them.

The only bench player to have batted against him is Wily Mo who went 1 for 1. After last night though I would not expect Wily Mo to be starting this game. If Francona does sit Drew, because of his hammy, look for Hinske to be in the line up for that left vs right.

Pitching Comparisions

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
D. McGowan	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	2	0.00	.67	-
D. Matsuzaka	2	1	1	0	13	8	3	1	6	18	2.08	1.08	6.5

Two appearances for McGowan against this team, one on 9/27/2005 and the other 0n 5/3/2006. As you can tell from the numbers, he was pretty effective in both games. His win came in the 2006 game and is vivid because that was Papel-bot's first loss last year. The other appearance was a game in which Timlin notched his 12th save and the bot had his 4th hold in a masterpiece by Wakefield. So, both of his appearances came in high pressure situations and he did the job.

In his two plus seasons, McGowan has made 22 starts averaging 5.23 innings with a 1.52 WHIP and a 5.79 ERA to go with his 6 and 9 record. So, a pitcher with a losing record should be no problem for these bats, but these are the Boston Red Sox we are talking about.

As for Daisuke, what can we say, this will be his third start vs the Jays and he has been very, very good in both of those games. This will be the first time he faces the Jays at home though.

In both of his games vs the Jays he has struck out the side once in each game and struck out four in a row in both games. Of the eight hits only two have been for extra bases, a home run by Overbay in the second game and a double by Rios. Overbay and Rios are the only two who have more than 1 hit vs Daisuke (Rios 3/6 and Overbay 2/6).

Look for him to beat these guys up and notch his eleventh win.

Chow!