If there is a game the New York Yankees might lose in the four-game Red Sox series at Yankee Stadium, it’s tonight’s matchup between the Yankee’s James Paxton and the Red Sox’s Nathan Eovaldi. The ex-Yankee Eovaldi and Paxton when on, can both be lights out.
The game tonight at 7:07 pm at the stadium will be played under mostly cloudy skies and with a game-time temperature in the upper ’70s with low humidity. It should be a nice night for baseball with only a slight chance of a shower. The game will be nationally televised on the Fox Network.
The New York Yankees are coming off of a lashing of the Red Sox, a game last night that they won 10-3 off of Gerrit Cole’s pitching gem. The Yankees came alive with a combination of the long ball of Gary Sanchez and the small ball play of most everyone else. In a good sign of things to come, the slow start of last year’s home run leader, Gleyber Torres came to an end, with him going 4 for 4 in the game.
Tonight James Paxton will take the mound for the Yankees. Paxton when he is on can easily handle the Red Sox, but this season he has been inconsistent, to say the least. In his first two outings, he went a total of only four innings with an ERA of 20.00. But Paxton is coming off an impressive game against the Tampa Bay Rays when struck out 11 Rays in 6.1 innings in a no-decision game. Hopefully, that game signaled a return to form for the “Big Maple” as his fastball which had been lacking, touched 94 mph. Paxton’s last season was 15-6 with an ERA of 3.82. In a recent interview pitching coach, Matt Blake cited that Paxton was still coming back from back surgery, and said that he can see Paxton’s fastball returning to 96 to 99 mph.
The New York Yankees will face ex-Yankee Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi has always pitched well at Yankee Stadium, he has a 10-5 record in the Bronx. Eovaldi is 1-1 with an ERA of 3.09. Two games that the Red Sox won with him on the mound were against the lowly Baltimore Orioles and the equally poor New York Mets. He lost his outing with the Rays but pitched impressively in his last outing against the Toronto Blue Jays. In that game, he walked no one and struck out 10 Jays in six innings of work.
The New York Yankees, tonight will again start the game without the services of the smash brothers, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, who are both, again on the IL. But the Yankees have the talented lineup to get the job done, without the two. Mike Tauchman has been a strong player in the absence of Stanton, and recently recalled Clint Frazier has shown that he can fill in for Aaron Judge.
Tomorrow evening the Yankees will again face the Red Sox at the Stadium. J.A. Happ is presently scheduled to take the mound for the Yankees facing a yet to be announced Red Sox pitcher. That game will be another nationally televised game, this one on ESPN.
Yankees 5-4
EmpireSportsMedia.com’s Columnist William Parlee is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. Follow me on Twitter @parleewilliam