Red Sox 2008 Game 67 Preview

			@
D. Cabrera		5-2, 3.98		J. Beckett		6-4, 4.07
Orioles		31 - 31		Red Sox		40 - 26

Tuesday, June 10                 Fenway Park  ✠ 6:05 p.m. ET

American League

East	W	L	GB	L 10	1 R W	1 R L	X W	X L
Boston	40	26	-	8-2	10	8	38	28
Tampa Bay	38	26	1.0	6-4	10	7	35	29
Toronto	33	33	7.0	3-7	10	15	36	30
New York	32	32	7.0	5-5	11	9	31	33
Baltimore	31	31	7.0	5-5	14	9	30	32

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

Orioles: Cabrera struggled with the Twins on Wednesday, allowing eight hits and six earned runs in six innings. The big right-hander, who had improved his control up to this point, hit two batters. He threw 102 pitches while laboring during the 7-5 Twins loss. Cabrera will next take the hill against the Red Sox, who he faced on May 30, a 5-2 Orioles loss. Cabrera went seven innings and gave up two earned runs.

Red Sox: The Red Sox ace easily handled the Rays in his last outing, a six-inning performance in which he allowed just one run on seven hits and recorded five strikeouts. While he wasn't entirely impressed with his outing, Beckett did manage to get the victory and catapult the Sox past the Rays in the American League East standings. Beckett has allowed five earned runs in his last 19 innings of work, a stretch that includes 24 strikeouts.

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

Red Sox Batting History vs Cabrera

Player	AB	Hits	2b	3b	HR's	RBI	BB's	K's	BA	OBA	Slug	OPS
J. Ellsbury	14	7	2	0	1	1	0	1	.500	.500	.857	1.357
D. Pedroia	11	4	2	0	0	1	0	1	.364	.364	.545	.909
J. D. Drew	9	3	1	0	0	0	3	1	.333	.500	.444	.944
M. Ramirez	16	4	1	0	0	3	3	3	.250	.368	.313	.681
M. Lowell	15	7	2	0	2	9	3	0	.467	.500	1.000	1.500
K. Youkilis	19	6	5	0	0	3	3	6	.316	.391	.579	.970
J. Varitek	20	4	1	0	1	4	4	9	.200	.333	.400	.733
C. Crisp	13	4	0	0	0	2	2	3	.308	.375	.308	.683
J. Lugo	19	3	0	1	0	1	3	3	.158	.273	.263	.536
Totals	136	42	14	1	4	24	21	27	.309	.401	.515	.916

Lugo is killing the starters with his .158 average but if you replaced Lugo's numbers with Cora's (who is batting .440 / .462 / .680 / 1.142) well the starters would go up to .352 / .429 / .577 / 1.006. I fully expect Alex Cora to start this game. I also would not be surprised to see Casey as the DH in place of Manny. Should be interesting to see what Francona does.

Pitching Comparisions Career

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Cabrera	13	2	9	0	63 1/3	75	48	5	45	56	6.82	1.89	4.87
Beckett	8	4	2	0	54 1/3	51	21	6	9	53	3.48	1.10	6.79

Cabrera until this year has been a whipping boy for the Sox. That walk to strike out ratio just about explains everything. This year though Cabrera has been pretty good against the Sox with two starts he has a 3.21 ERA and a 2.5 K/BB ratio and a 1.29 WHIP.

Josh has either been very good (5 of 8 starts quality starts), 6 of eight starts he has allowed only 2 or less runs, but when he has been bad (both of his losses) he has been horrible as he has allowed 10 earned runs in 14 1/3 innings. Of course one of those bad outings was on 5/13 of this year.

Pitching Comparisions this year

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Cabrera	13	5	2	0	86	78	38	10	32	47	3.98	1.28	6.62
Beckett	11	6	4	0	73	66	33	11	14	80	4.07	1.10	6.64

Cabrera has been real good this year, but if I was the Orioles I would still be worried about his K/BB ratio. As a whole though, he has looked really good. Lets just hope he reverts to the pre 2008 Daniel Cabrera tonight.

As for Josh, well, when he has been good, he has been good. I am expecting the good tonight!!!

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