The Tampa Bay Rays will play the Boston Red Sox in Game 1 of their series at Fenway Park on Friday night.
The Tampa Bay Rays are 69-55 this season and have won six games in a row. Tampa Bay is coming off of a series win against the Angels, where they won all four games played in the series. The Tampa Bay pitching staff has a 3.29 ERA, a 1.13 WHIP, and a .230 opponent batting average this season. The Rays offense has scored 520 runs with a .239 batting average and a .308 on base percentage. Randy Arozarena is batting .259 with 17 home runs and 66 RBI’s for the Rays this season. The projected starter for Tampa Bay is JT Chargois, who is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA and a 0.75 WHIP over 2.2 innings pitched this season.
The Boston Red Sox are 60-65 this season and have lost six of their last seven games. Boston is coming off of a series loss against Toronto, where they lost all three games played in the series. The Boston pitching staff has a 4.46 ERA, a 1.33 WHIP, and a .252 opponent batting average. The Red Sox offense has scored 558 runs with a .255 batting average and a .315 on base percentage this year. Rafael Devers is batting .300 with 25 home runs and 65 RBI’s for the Red Sox this season. The projected starter for Boston is Michael Wacha, who is 8-1 with a 2.28 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP over 83 innings pitched this season.
Tampa Bay is playing really good baseball right now and has won six games in a row. The Rays currently hold the first wild card spot, but only have a slim lead over the Blue Jays and Mariners. Boston started to creep into the wild card picture, but their recent struggles have pretty much pushed them out of contention. Tampa Bay is starting JT Chargois, who is a reliever, and will follow with a couple of bullpen pitchers. For Boston, Michael Wacha has been very good this season and has allowed six runs over his last 23.2 innings pitched. I like Boston in this matchup behind Wacha.