Boston @ Chicago preview
Guaranteed Rate Field
Last Meeting ( Sep 27, 2010 ) Boston 6, Chi. White Sox 1
The combination of Clay Buchholz and the Toronto Blue Jays kept Boston’s miniscule playoff hopes alive for another day on Monday.
John Lackey takes his turn on Tuesday as the Red Sox meet the White Sox in the second contest of a four-game series at Chicago.
Boston trails New York by 5 1/2 games in the race for the American League wild card with just six games to play. The Yankees were defeated by Toronto, 7-5, on Monday.
Buchholz (17-7) was dominant again as Boston cruised past Chicago, 6-1, in the series opener. The hard-throwing right-hander lowered his ERA to 2.33 on the season, which is second in the American League.
Buchholz allowed just one run and five hits in the contest while maintaining a velocity of 96 mph in the eighth inning. He struck out five and retired 10 of the last 11 batters he faced.
Lackey, however, has been far from as reliable as Buchholz. At 13-11 on the season, Lackey has received plenty of support in his starts and Boston hopes to continue its offensive flurry on Tuesday. The Red Sox pounded out 16 hits off Chicago pitching on Monday.
Adrian Beltre had four hits and two RBIs for Boston, which jumped out to an early lead on a two-run double by David Ortiz in the first inning. Both Ortiz and Beltre reached 100 RBIs for the season in the contest.
Marco Scutaro and Victor Martinez both had three of Boston’s 16 hits.
Lackey is 3-6 lifetime against the White Sox.
The White Sox will probably be without slugger Alex Rios on Tuesday. Rios fouled a ball off his leg in the eighth inning of Monday’s game and was forced to leave the contest in the middle of his at-bat.
Buchholz kept Juan Pierre off the bases the entire night. Pierre, who leads the major leagues with 61 stolen bases, went 0-for-4.
Edwin Jackson (9-12) will start for the White Sox. Jackson is 2-4 in his career against the Red Sox. He has made nine starts since being acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks, going 3-2 over that span.
While Boston’s chances of reaching the playoffs are very slim, it surely regrets Sunday’s loss at Yankee Stadium when closer Jonathan Papelbon coughed up a 3-2 lead in the ninth inning.
It was Papelbon’s eighth blown save of the season, the most in the American League. Papelbon pointed the finger at home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi, who the closer said missed several calls in the ninth inning.
Papelbon was quoted as saying that he was being forced to beat both the umpire and the Yankees. A diagram of Papelbon’s pitches produced by a popular baseball web site revealed that Cuzzi indeed missed seven calls during Papelbon’s appearance.