Chad Tracy told us not to look very much into the order of the rotation this week, but it’s hard not to note that Payton Tolle is starting tonight exactly one week before the Wild Card series begins, and Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez are set to go tomorrow and Thursday. That feels like a Game 1, Game 2, and Game 3 setup for New York, but again, we’ll still have to wait a few more days for official word.
Regardless of how the Sox choose to stack the deck, this will be Tolle’s final tune up before the showdown against the Yankees, so how he looks here will be even more important than the result of this game for the Red Sox.
On the contrary, this game means everything to Cleveland. Despite entering the night three games behind the Red Sox, they’re currently leading the AL Central by a game over the Chicago White Sox, and if the season ended today, they’d actually get a bye and wouldn’t even have to play in the Wild Card round.
To help them maintain control of that bye, they have their ace Parker Messick on the mound, who enters the evening with a 2.57 ERA and 186 strike outs on the season.
Switching gears to the Red Sox lineup, the biggest note is that Roman Anthony is again in left field and Jarren Duran starts the night on the bench. This is becoming the theme against left handed starts, which is obviously noteworthy for next week because Carlos Rodon and Max Fried are both left handed.
⚾️ First Pitch: 6:45pm — Fenway Park. Boston, MA
Join us in the game thread below!
