Red Sox 07 Game 97

			@
J. Danks		6-6, 4.81		K. Gabbard		3-0, 3.38
Chicago White Sox		43-52		Red Sox		57-39

Saturday, July 21    Fenway Park | 3:55 PM ET

American League

East	W	L	GB	L 10	X W	X L
Boston	57	39	-	4-6	58	38
New York	48	46	8.0	7-3	54	40
Toronto	46	50	11.0	4-6	48	48
Baltimore	43	52	13.5	6-4	47	48
Tampa	38	57	18.5	4-6	38	57

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From MLB.Com Scouting Report

White Sox: The rookie southpaw evened his record Monday at Jacobs Field, thanks to 11 runs from his offense. Danks threw 102 pitches over 5 2/3 innings, allowing five runs on eight hits, striking out four and walking one. He was also touched up for home runs by Victor Martinez and Franklin Gutierrez, giving him a team-high 18 allowed this season. Danks has never faced the Red Sox, but he has a 3-3 record on the road.

Red Sox: On Monday night at Fenway, Gabbard served notice that he could be in Boston for the long haul. For nine sparkling innings, he silenced an underrated Kansas City offense, allowing no runs on three hits and striking out eight. The performance wowed a packed Fenway house and had coaches and teammates giddy after witnessing his two-hour, 18-minute clinic. Gabbard's breakout, on the heels of a strong performance in Detroit before the All-Star break, has set up an interesting rotational dilemma with Curt Schilling's impending return from injury.

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

Sox Batting vs Danks.

The Sox have never faced Danks, another one of those games where you hope the pitcher really struggles, so that you are in the drivers seat early.

Pitching Comparisions (last 5 games overall).

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Danks	5	3	0	0	29	31	19	6	8	23	5.90	1.34	5.80
Gabbard	5	3	0	1	29 1/3	21	11	2	14	25	3.38	1.19	5.87

Overall, Danks has done better in his last 10 games as he has a 5.37 ERA with a 4-2 record. His WHIP and IP / GS is worse though as he has a 1.62 WHIP in those games and only averaged 5.37 innings per start.

Still he is a lefty and the Sox have been struggling against the lefties since June 1st. Since that date they are 4-10 against left handed pitchers. That is not a good trend.

Danks has a medium fastball, low 90's but has an above average curve ball. In his last five starts he has only 1 quality start and last 10 starts only 2.

Gabbard has done well in his last two starts and has faced the White Sox once, last September 5, in Chicago. That was a well pitched game as he went 7 innings giving up 3 hits, k'ing 6 and walking only 2. That was the first win of his career and he had to be good, since the Sox were only able to score only one run vs Vasquez. This will be his tenth start in the majors.

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