Game 146: Red Sox vs. Orioles

I don’t know how we got here

After Monday’s insanity and Tuesday’s dud of a game, tonight is sure to be interesting as the last game of a three-day stint against the Orioles. Firstly, because I’m writing tonight’s game recap, but most importantly: because it’s Nick Pivetta day!

What a glorious coincidence for me to have gotten sick this weekend and traded recap days with Bryan Joiner for a day that Pivetta happened to be on the bump. This was bound to happen one day, and thanks to Bryan’s generosity and the insane head cold that I got from the Kansas City airport, all of you lucky people get to enjoy it today.

Pivetta will face Dean Kremer on Baltimore’s end of tonight’s rubber match. In what is definitely the most unspectacular pitching matchup of this series, both have ERAs North of 4.25, so this deciding game of the series could get interesting. Or, the Red Sox could continue to forget how to play baseball and go on to score two runs against Kremer and his 1.36 WHIP over his last seven starts. As Alex Cora said earlier this week, I have no clue how we ended up here, but the Red Sox and their +1 run differential are four games out of the third Wild Card spot with 16 games left to play. So Nick Pivetta, if you can hear me — now’s the time for you to become this team’s hero and propel them to a 16-game win streak, no pressure!

Game time

7:10 p.m. ET

Watch on TV

NESN

Listen on radio

WEEI

Here are the lineups for the series finale.