Arizona @ Boston preview
Fenway Park
Last Meeting ( Jun 16, 2010 ) Arizona 2, Boston 6
Thank goodness Boston is still in the playoff race, otherwise few people in Beantown would care about Thursday night's interleague game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Red Sox.
With the Boston Celtics playing the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals at Los Angeles the entire city will be focused on basketball. In fact, Thursday's game time has been moved up an hour to 6:10 p.m. to give fans a chance to watch the basketball game.
Thursday's pitching matchup could also hurry things along.
Arizona ace Dan Haren faces John Lackey in a battle of seven-game winners. Haren will be trying to end Arizona's 12-game losing streak on the road. The Diamondbacks have lost the first two games of the series at Fenway.
Haren (7-4) has won his last two starts and threw eight shutout innings in a no-decision in the prior outing. He has 97 strikeouts in 95 innings, tied for the major league lead.
If Arizona ever takes a lead into the ninth again, the Diamondbacks will unveil their new closer. Manager A.J. Hinch has decided to go with former New York Met Aaron Heilman in the ninth in place of the struggling Chad Qualls.
Heilman has a 2.83 ERA in 28 2/3 innings, most of them in the setup role. Qualls, who underwent major knee surgery last year, has been ineffective much of the season. He gave up three hits and committed an error in Sunday's game before being replaced and, in his prior outing, he allowed four runs against the Braves.
Qualls has an ERA of 8.46.
Lackey (7-3) has been efficient lately. He continues to go deep in games and has lowered his once lofty ERA to a manageable 4.54. And Lackey continues to be an important figure in Boston's starting rotation, particularly with Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka on the disabled list.
With Clay Buchholz (9-4) and Jon Lester (8-2) leading the way, the Red Sox continue to chase the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East standings. Boston has won four of its last five games and enter Thursday three games behind the division leaders.
The Red Sox announced that they will start minor leaguer Felix Doubront on Friday. Doubront will facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in a highly-anticipated game that marks the return of Manny Ramirez to Fenway for the first time since he was traded in 2008.
Boston won the second game of the series on Wednesday 6-2 getting a pair of two-run homers from Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. Lester struck out seven in seven innings.