Red Sox 07 Game 118

			@
J. Shields		9-7, 4.32		T. Wakefield		13-10, 4.81
Devil Rays		45 - 72		Red Sox		70 - 47

Monday, August 13      Fenway Park  ✠ 7:05 PM ET

American League

East	W	L	GB	L 10	1 R W	1 R L	X W	X L
Boston	70	47	-	5-5	17	17	71	46
New York	66	51	4.0	8-2	10	15	72	45
Toronto	59	57	10.5	6-4	20	19	62	54
Baltimore	54	62	15.5	4-6	10	22	58	58
Tampa	45	72	25	4-6	13	12	44	73

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

Devil Rays: It's not easy to shut down the Tigers, but Shields did just that for the second time in as many starts against Detroit on Wednesday. He allowed just one run and five hits over seven innings in a 7-1 Tampa Bay win. He also pitched a complete game against the Tigers on May 30. He struck out nine against the Tigers and gave up his only run on a solo homer. No other batter reached third base. Now Shields will face the Red Sox, a team he is winless against with a 5.87 ERA over three career starts.

Red Sox: Tuesday was not one of Wakefield's better outings as he flirted with danger all game, retiring the side in order in only one of four innings. Given a 4-2 lead, Wakefield was unable to retire a single batter in the fifth as the Angels sent 11 men to the plate. Wakefield gave up seven runs -- six earned -- on seven hits and three walks over four innings. He faces Tampa Bay for the third time this season, winning both previous starts. Lifetime, Wakefield is 15-2 against the Devil Rays.

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

Hitting History vs Shields

Player	AB	H	2b	3b	HR's	RBI	BB's	K's	BA
J. Lugo	2	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	.000
K. Youkilis	7	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	.000
D. Ortiz	8	3	1	0	2	3	1	1	.375
M. Ramirez	7	1	0	0	1	2	2	4	.143
J.D. Drew	3	2	1	0	0	1	0	1	.667
M. Lowell	4	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	.500
A. Cora	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	.333
D. Mirabelli	1	1	0	0	1	1	1	0	1.000
E. Hinske	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Totals	35	9	1	0	3	7	4	10	.257

Led by David Ortiz's .375 average, this team has been able to hit Shields in the past. With Mirabelli playing instead of Varitek and Hinske instead of Crisp the average is .257, as opposed to .275 for the normal starters. Still, with his low innings per start vs the Sox, you have to like the teams chances tonight. Let us just hope that the bats show up tonight.

Historical Pitching Lines

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Shields	3	0	1	0	15 1/3	15	10	4	6	19	5.87	1.37	5.11
Wakefield	24	17	2	0	173 1/3	137	57	17	56	118	2.96	1.11	6.39

So we are looking at Shields numbers vs the Sox, they are not very pretty. He has started three games in the last two years vs your Boston Red Sox with a good strikeout record per nine. He is not going very far into the game though.

Three starts and he has went 5 innings twice and 5 1/3 innings the other time. Look at the 5.87 ERA though. The last time he faced this team was back on 7/28/2007. He has never pitched in Fenway park.

One other thing about Shields, he is averaging 11.15 K's per nine innings vs the Sox. This year he is sixth in strikeouts and is just three ahead of Beckett. He can get big K's when he needs to.

There are two Wakefields vs Tampa, there is the lights out at tropicana field Wakefield and then there is the Fenway Park Wakefield. Do you know what I think? I think that I will take either Wakefield. In twelve starts at Fenway Tim has pitched 77 1/3 innings with a WHIP of 1.16, a very good 6.44 IP / GS and an ERA of 3.72. Oh, yeah he is 8 and 2 in those starts. Not bad for a man with an unreliable pitch.

He has won four of the last five starts vs this team also. Earlier this year (7/4/2007) he went 6 1/3 innings allowing four earned runs on seven hits (1 home run) while walking two and striking out two at Fenway Park. His second start (7/27/2007) this year was at tropicana where he went six innings allowing six hits, one earned run and three walks. Like I said, I will take either of the Tims.

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