Red Sox 2008 Game 81 Preview

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R. Johnson		4-5, 5.09		T. Wakefield		4-5, 4.17
Diamondbacks		40-38		Red Sox		48-32

Wednesday, June 25      Fenway Park  ✠ 7:05 p.m. ET

American League

East	W	L	GB	L 10	1 R W	1 R L	X W	X L
Boston	48	32	-	6-4	11	10	46	34
Tampa Bay	45	31	1.0	7-3	13	9	41	35
New York	41	36	5.5	7-3	13	9	40	37
Baltimore	39	36	6.5	7-3	17	11	36	39
Toronto	37	41	10.0	3-7	11	19	42	36

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From MLB.Com Scouting Report

Diamondbacks: Johnson has dropped his last four starts and over that span has a 7.77 ERA. In his last outing against the Twins, he allowed seven runs on 11 hits while tossing his first complete game since Aug. 24, 2006. Six of the seven runs came during the third inning and only two of the six hits that inning were hit hard. Johnson has allowed 10 or more hits in back-to-back starts for the first time in his career and his outing against the Twins was the first time he had struck out one or fewer batters since Aug. 4, 2006.

Red Sox: Wakefield has given up three earned runs or less in each of his last five starts since allowing eight runs in five innings against Oakland on May 23. He's gone at least seven innings in all of those outings, but is just 1-2 in that span. His last outing resulted in a 5-4 Red Sox loss to the Cardinals. Still, his ERA has continually dropped in each start from its highest point of the season on May 23 -? it rose to 5.19 after that rough outing against the A's.

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

Red Sox Batting History vs Johnson

Player	AB	Hits	2b	3b	HR's	RBI	BB's	K's	BA	OBA	Slug	OPS
J. Ellsbury	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---
D. Pedroia	2	1	1	0	0	0	3	1	.500	.800	1.000	1.800
J. D. Drew	8	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	.125	.222	.125	.347
M. Ramirez	42	11	3	0	5	17	7	12	.262	.367	.690	1.058
M. Lowell	44	8	2	0	1	4	3	13	.182	.234	.295	.529
K. Youkilis	16	5	1	0	1	3	3	1	.313	.421	.563	.984
K. Cash	2	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	.500	.500	2.000	2.500
C. Crisp	10	3	2	0	0	2	0	6	.300	.300	.500	.800
J. Lugo	33	4	0	0	1	3	2	13	.121	.167	.212	.379
Totals	157	34	9	0	9	30	18	49	.217	.301	.446	.747

One out every three batters strikes out, a .217 batting average against Johnson. Is there any hope for an offensive break out? Not if you see the norms, but you know what, they have been sucking versus the pitchers who they should be hammering so maybe turn about. Nope, I ain't buying that, confidence level in a win tonight - 10 %.

Pitching Comparisions Career

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Johnson	29	16	7	1	181 1/3	149	90	24	92	222	4.47	1.33	6.25
Wakefield	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	1	2	0.00	.50	0.00

Wakefield has never made a start versus the Diamondbacks but he has matched up against Randy Johnson in the past. That was back in 2005 when the Sox were trying to catch the Yankees. He lost a 1-0 game in Yankee Stadium.

That was a huge loss for the Sox as the Yankees were trailing the Sox by 4.0 games prior to that game. Just to remind you, the Sox ended up losing the division by 1 game that year after Johnson also beat the Sox on 10/31/2005. In fact you could say that Johnson was the reason why the Yankees won the division that year since he went 5-0 versus the Sox.

The question is how does Johnson keep on beating the Sox? In 2005 and 2006 while Johnson was with the Yankees he pitched five games at Fenway. His record in those games is 4-0 and he accomplished this with a 6.06 ERA. In fact in the five games he only had one quality start. All other starts he gave up 4 runs (1 start) or 5 runs (all the rest). Yet he did not lose a single game.

Pitching Comparisions this year

Pitcher	GS	W	L	Sho	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP	IP/GS
Johnson	13	4	5	0	76	86	43	9	22	71	5.09	1.42	5.85
Wakefield	15	4	5	0	95	84	44	14	41	63	4.17	1.32	6.33

I think Randy can say that he's been the victim of some bad luck since he has allowed, or since eight un-earned runs have been scored while he ws pitching. However, he has nothing on Wakefield who is 1-2 in his last five games while averaging 7.20 innings and only giving up 10 earned runs. That is a sparkling 2.50 ERA with a 1.03 WHIP. What has hurt him though is the five Home Runs that he has allowed. The question is how long can Wakefield keep up this hot streak though? Let's hope he gets the win.

Inside Edge

Type	All	1st P	Early	2	Ahead	Behind	RHB	LHB	Op. BA
Fastball %	53	59	52	55	55	51	53	57	.276
Curves %	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Sliders %	38	34	38	40	37	37	38	40	.220
Change Ups %	7	6	9	4	6	10	7	3	.344
Totals (pitches)	1803	476	1078	538	711	360	1563	240	.252

Only Randy's sliders have consistently been good versus his opponents. The history versus the Sox though is so good, you have to feel that he will really be good. Another close game, yep, I think so.

♊ - Well, let's hope we get some funny hats too.