Boston @ Toronto preview
Rogers Centre
Last Meeting ( Mar 26, 2010 ) Toronto 2, Boston 3
The Toronto Blue Jays have to be happy to get away from Tampa Bay. The Boston Red Sox must be happy to get away, period.
Coming off a sub-.500 homestand, the Red Sox will look to regroup when they visit the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday in the opener of a three-game series.
Neither team enters the series on a high note. The Blue Jays lost back-to-back games to the Rays, while the Red Sox coughed up a late lead to the bottom-feeding Baltimore Orioles on Sunday.
Boston sends ace Josh Beckett to the mound in the series opener, but he’s not necessarily a recipe for success against the Blue Jays.
Toronto has pretty much had its way with Beckett since he landed in Boston in 2006. In 12 career starts against the Blue Jays, Beckett posted a 3-5 record and 6.62 ERA.
And things have gotten progressively worse in the past two seasons against the Blue Jays, who have scorched Beckett for 25 hits and 25 runs in his last four starts against them, spanning a mere 17 1/3 innings.
Toronto will counter will left-hander Dana Eveland, who has been treated equally rudely in three career starts against Boston.
Eveland has failed to get out of the third inning twice against the Red Sox and is 0-2 against them with an off-the-chart 17.36 ERA.
However, the 26-year-old lefty has show signs of blossoming in his first season with Toronto, going 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA in three starts this season.
After starting the season 5-1 and 7-3, the Blue Jays have started to level off, capped by the pair of weekend losses in the house of horrors known as Tropicana Field.
After winning Friday’s opener, Toronto had a chance to end a streak of losing eight straight series at Tampa. But its bullpen unraveled in the eighth inning of a 9-3 loss Saturday and the offense went very quietly on Sunday, succumbing to a four-hit, complete-game shutout by David Price.
Unless Beckett manages to reverse his recent history against the Blue Jays, Toronto’s lineup could get well quickly at the expense of Boston’s pitching staff.
Although the Red Sox managed to take two of three from Baltimore, their pitchers were raked for 40 hits in the series and the bullpen was ravaged in back-to-back games Saturday and Sunday.
The one bright spot for Toronto in Sunday’s game was catcher Jose Molina, who showed that the Blue Jays’ only offense was his defense.
Molina set a team record by throwing out four baserunners in Sunday’s game – the first time that has been accomplished in eight years. It was more impressive given that fact that Tampa entered the game leading the majors by converting 21-of-27 steal attempts.