Monday, April 13, 2009 Oakland Coliseum ✠ 10:05 p.m. ET
ESPN.Com Preview .
Yahoo's Preview .
ESPN.Com after the game Recap.
MLB.Com Press Pass
From MLB.Com Scouting Report
Red Sox: - Lester tries to bounce back from a shaky first outing, in which he gave up eight hits and five runs over five innings to the Tampa Bay Rays. Lester came out strong in that one, striking out five over the first two innings. This is his third career start at the Colisuem, where he is 1-1 with a 2.31 ERA. Lifetime against the A's, Lester is 2-2 with a 3.94 ERA. He hopes to perform better on the road than he did last year, when he went 5-5 with a 4.09 ERA.
Athletics: - In the first Opening Day assignment of his career, Braden -- at 25 the oldest member of Oakland's starting rotation -- held the host Angels to three runs over six innings but was outpitched by Halos lefty Joe Saunders, who blanked the A's on three hits over 6 2/3 innings. Braden gave up nine hits, none bigger than Howard Kendrick's opposite-field homer in the fifth inning. A soft-tossing lefty who relies heavily on command, Braden walked one and struck out three on 97 pitches. He faced the Mariners twice last season, both times in relief, and allowed two earned runs in two innings. He's 0-1 with an 8.71 ERA over 10 1/3 innings against Seattle for his career.
?WTF? Beats me what they are talking about, the day by day shows Braden pitched once against the sox, last August when he went 3 1/3 allowing 4 earned runs at Fenway in a loss. ?WTF?
Filed under the Baseball is a funny game, especially when it comes to stats column.
Last three years the Sox are 6-11 at Oakland with a 4.14 ERA with Beckett, Schilling, Matsuzaka, Okajima and Lester getting the wins. Only Matsuzaka and Schilling have a .500 record or better as starters though.
The funny part, if you look at the last five years though the Sox are 10-13 (4-2) with a 4.46 ERA. Almost 1/2 of a run increase in the ERA and they won almost as many games in those two years than they have won in the last three years. Some times you just never know in this game.
♊ - Insanity is part of the times. You must learn to embrace the madness. Let it fire you.
