Los Angeles @ Boston preview
Fenway Park
Last Meeting ( Jul 28, 2010 ) Boston 7, LA Angels 3
With their playoff hopes slipping away, the Boston Red Sox are in desperate need of a spark.
That spark will arrive on Tuesday night in the person of second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who is expected to be activated when the Red Sox host the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the opener of a three-game series.
Pedroia returns after missing 44 games, during which time the Red Sox went 23-21 and dropped from a tie for the American wild-card lead to five games behind Tampa Bay.
Not that one player - even of Pedroia's caliber - can make such a difference, but his absence was magnified by a subsequent string of injuries that depleted Boston's roster.
Within a week of Pedroia going down with a broken bone in his foot, the Red Sox lost both their catchers - Victor Martinez and Jason Varitek - to injury as well as a slew of other players, including first baseman Kevin Youkilis and outfielders Mike Cameron and Jacoby.
Youkilis is done for the season and is among six players remaining on the DL, so it's easy to see why Boston and its fans are eager to lay out the welcome mat for Pedroia.
The 2008 American League MVP, Pedroia was on fire before he was hurt on June 25. One day before the injury, he had gone 5-for-5 with the first three-homer day of his career in a 13-11 win over Colorado.
That capped a stretch in which Pedroia had hit safely in 12 of 13 games, including nine multi-hit contests, and raised his batting average 55 points from a season-low .248 to .293.
Even with the myriad injuries, the Red Sox were treading water until a couple of devastating back-to-back, walk-off losses at Toronto and Texas on their just-completed 10-game road swing.
Clay Buchholz (13-5) will get the start tonight for Boston in the opener of a 10-game homestand against the Angels, who have lost all seven meetings with the Red Sox this season.
Ironically, Buchholz was injured one day after Pedroia and also spent a stint on the DL, but he appears to be in peak form at the moment. The 26-year-old right-hander is 3-0 in his last four outings, allowing just seven runs – five earned – in 30 1/3 innings.
One of those starts was at Anaheim last month, when Buchholz allowed one run on five hits in seven innings in beating Los Angeles for the second time this season. Hideki Matsui (.417) and Maicer Izturis (.400) have had the most success against Buchholz among the Angels hitters.
Ace Jered Weaver (11-7) gets the start for Los Angeles, which is 8 1/2 games back of front-running Texas in the AL West.
Weaver also is on a roll, going 2-0 with a no-decision in his last three starts while yielding just two earned runs in 22 innings.
His last loss came against Boston on July 27, when he was on the short end of a 4-2 decision despite allowing just two runs on six hits in seven innings. Such a lack of run production is typical for Weaver, who sports a tidy 2.87 ERA and an AL-leading 182 strikeouts.