The fiercest rivalry in sports takes center stage when the Yankees visit the Red Sox. Don’t look now but the hottest team in baseball might just be the Sox as they make a push for the top spot in the AL East.
ODDS ANALYSIS
The Yankees finished off a 4-2 homestand by taking the final two games from the Oakland A’s, winning 6-2 on Thursday, and look to continue their success against the Red Sox. The Yanks won four straight in the season series after dropping the first two games. The teams haven’t met since early May when the Yanks swept the Sox in a three-game set in Fenway Park, going up 3.55 units. New York is just 4-8 in its last 12 road games and enters the weekend 21-23 overall away from Yankee Stadium.
Despite a rough first half of the season, the Red Sox will try and close the gap on the division leading Yankees. Left for dead two weeks ago, the Sox have suddenly surged up the AL East standings to climb within 5.5 games of the first place Yankees after a stretch of 10 wins in 14 games, including four straight following Wednesday’s 6-3 win over Miami. The offensive woes that plagued the Sox earlier in the year have been resolved with the club scoring better than five runs an outing during their run.
PITCHING MATCHUP
Iván Nova (1-2, 2.65 ERA) will look to bounce back from his last outing against the Rays, who hit him for four runs (three earned) on six hits over five innings. Nova has lost two of his three starts since coming back from Tommy John surgery and endured his worst of the bunch last time out. Command has been an issue for Nova, who’s issued seven free passes in just 17 innings.
Nova is 2-2 with a 4.76 ERA and 1.85 WHIP over 22.2 innings of five starts and one relief outing at Fenway Park.
Eduardo Rodriguez (4-2, 3.69 ERA) held the Astros to one run in five innings with a season-high eight strikeouts and took a no-decision Sunday. He’s 1-0 with a 1.64 ERA in his last two outings but has struggled against divisional foes going 1-2 with a 7.08 ERA in four starts.
This will be the lefty’s first career start against the Yankees.
QUOTE TO NOTE
“I talked to someone about our division who’s a NASCAR fan. It’s like racing in Daytona or Talladega. If you get out of the draft, you can get from first to fourth in a heartbeat, first to fifth, that’s how bunched up we are.” – Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi on the congested AL East race
LIVE BETTING or SITUATIONAL BETTING
With just five hits in his first 35 at-bats in June, Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts had bottomed out. His average was at .234, the Sox had just been swept in Baltimore, kicking off a stretch where they’d lose eight of nine and drop to a season-worst 11 games under .500. Betts would injure himself crashing into the centerfield wall and miss the next two games with a sore back. He returned on June 15 to collect three hits. He’d get three more the next day, including a double and a triple. The next day kicked off a five-game road trip where Betts would reach base 13 times and add two more home runs. He hasn’t stopped hitting since, raising his OPS over 100 points since he ran into the wall. Betts is hitting .372 since June 15 and his season numbers are similar to those of All-Star teammate Brock Holt.
PROP TALK
He turns 40 in November and the skills are eroding, but David Ortiz has been involved in enough of these rivalry games to understand the importance. Ortiz stroked a double and his 15th home run of the year in Wednesday’s tune-up win over the Marlins, raising his average to .230. He’s enjoyed plenty of success against the Yankees during his lengthy career with 45 home runs and 154 RBIs while hitting .307 in 797 career at-bats. He also hits .316 with a homer in 19 ABs facing Iván Nova. This could be one of the last times Ortiz gets a chance to stick it to the hated Yankees and he will make the most of it.
ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION
The Red Sox just have too much talent to be as bad as they were and many expected them to have a run in them. Well, they’re surging now, but will the real Sox please stand up. They are still the worst team in a bad division, which isn’t saying much, but it does give them a chance if they string more wins together. The Yankees will be much better now that Jacoby Ellsbury is back in the lineup and Andrew Miller has returned to his closer role. Nova gets support from a lineup that averages 6.3 runs per game against the Sox and gets win.
New York 8, Boston 5
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