The New York Yankees have headed to Boston to sweep a series with the traditional Rival Boston Red Sox. They are going into this series at Fenway Park with immense confidence, after sweeping two series in a row from the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Boston Red Sox are a mess this year, sitting at the bottom of AL East and tied for the third-worst baseball team in America. The danger the Yankees face is going into the series being over-confident. Anything can happen in any series.
The New York Yankees team that lost 15 of 20 games earlier is now doing historic things that some of the greatest teams in the Yankee’s rich history have not been able to do. The team has turned it around and has genuinely become the Bronx Bombers once again. You might say the present healthy lineup is another “murderers row.”
In the past series with the Blue Jays, the Yankees did something that has never been done in MLB history, they hit six or more home runs in three consecutive games. They also scored 43 runs in the three-game series, a franchise record number of runs. What has made this recovery possible, is the return of injured players and that the whole team, pitching and hitting is, clicking at the same time.
In the past eight days, the Yankees have gone from being five and a half games behind the East-leading Tampa Bay Rays to be just 3.5 games behind, and could possibly overtake the Rays, and once again be AL East Champions before the end of the season.
With the way the New York Yankees are playing, the Boston Red Sox, or any team for that matter, would want to face a lineup that includes DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, Giancarlo Stanton, Clint Frazier, and Gio Urshela. If they are all energized and clicking at the same time, the Yankees can be unbeatable.
The Boston Red Sox will try to change all of that when they meet up with the Yankees tonight at Fenway Park, for the first game of a three-game series.
The game tonight in Boston will be at 7:30 pm and will be televised on the YES Network, NESN in New England, and on the MLB Network (out of market only). The game-time temperature should be in the upper ’50s under mostly clear skies, and with a chilly north wind.
The game tonight will feature two of the closest matched pitchers to face each other this season. Lefty vs. lefty, the Yankees Jordan Montgomery is 2-2 with an ERA of 4.76 with 32 strikeouts, and Boston’s Martin Perez is 3-4 with an ERA of 4.33 and 37 strikeouts.
When Martin Perez faces the Yankees fierce lineup in the first inning, he will do so being one of the Red Sox’s most dependable pitchers. In his most recent outing against the good Tampa Bay Rays team, he limited them to two earned runs in five innings of work. The Yankees have faced Perez before, DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks, and Gio Urshela all have Perez’s number, all hitting .429 or better off of the lefty.
The New York Yankees will send out Jordan Montgomery tonight. This will be the third time Monty will face the Red Sox this season. The Yankees won both of his starts against the Sox. Montgomery is also coming off his best start of the season when he struck out a career-high 9 Baltimore Orioles in 5.2 innings of work in the Yankee win. Jordan will have to be careful with Xander Bogaerts and Christian Vazquez, both hit well off of Montgomery.
The Saturday game will be at 7:30 pm, with J.A. Happ on the mound facing a yet to be named Boston pitcher. The Sunday game will be a 1:07 pm matinee, featuring pitching sensation Deivi Garcia against Tanner Houck in his second major league start.