Hey, this team wins on the road more than at home!
The season is entering its wind-down month. September is nearly upon us and fans are left with the choice of following this Wild Card race or taking the advice of Green Day and hibernating for a month.
It’s been a transitional year for the Detroit Tigers. Tarik Skubal is a legitimate ace. He’s a capital A ace or number one starter and is probably going to win the AL Cy Young Award. He leads the AL with a 2.58 ERA. Boston was able to dodge the ace during the Tigers visit to Fenway Park earlier, but has no such luck this time around. And losing three out of five to the Toronto Blue Jays… well, it just means the team needs to pull off some wins.
Last time around was a split: Boston won the first and last games of the series while Detroit took the middle two.
In terms of lineups, there is simply no contest: this is a series for Boston pitching to (try and) feast. Riley Greene is there with an .830 OPS and Kerry Carpenter is back (in a big way, slashing .300/.364/.620 since returning to the lineup) at last as the other big bat—but that’s mostly it. There might be some addition-by-subtraction with Javier Báez hitting the IL, and Parker Meadows is fine.
Still, the Tigers have scored about the same number of runs as Toronto, so that can cut both ways. On the plus side? They’re bottom 10 in home runs hit. Which has been a sticky spot for the Red Sox lately.
Probable Starters
8/30: Tanner Houck (3.23 ERA / 3.48 FIP) vs TBD
8/31: Nick Pivetta (4.61 ERA / 4.30 FIP) vs Tarik Skubal (2.58 ERA / 2.58 FIP)
9/1: TBD vs Ty Madden (1.80 ERA / 4.17 FIP)
Game Times and Where to Watch
8/30: 6:40 PM ET on WEEI and NESN
8/31: 6:10 PM ET on WEEI and NESN
9/1: 1:40 PM ET on WEEI and NESN / MLB Network