Tonight is kind of a weird game with a bunch of little things going on all at once, and most of them are easy to overlook with the looming series in New York against the Yankees coming up this weekend. But let’s quickly run through some of them:
1) Walker Buehler is getting the start in Boston tonight, and at the same time, Kyle Harrison will be pitching for Worcester. It’s probably not a coincidence that the Sox A) lined up Buehler and Harrison to pitch on the same day, and B) reshuffled their rotation a couple of turns back to ensure this is the spot that misses the upcoming four game series in New York this weekend. If you read the tea leaves, Buehler is skating on some thin ice!
2) The Red Sox have not had a losing homestand all year that’s that’s lasted more than one series. That’s on the line tonight in what on paper looked like a pretty opportunistic home stretch. It even started with two wins and a lead late in the third game against the Marlins in a Crochet start, so if they walk out of this 2-3, it’s going to sting!
3) The Red Sox should have their two highest leverage relievers back available tonight in Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman, but after the last few days, it’s painfully obvious they need more help. So once again, we’ll be looking at this game with one eye on Worcester as the bullpens enter the game. The reason? Justin Slaten will be making an appearance down there in a rehab outing.
What’s currently in Worcester could very easily replace what we see in Boston tonight in another trip or two around the rotation.
4) The bottom of the Red Sox lineup tonight is, uh … something. They’ve got Masataka Yoshida playing in left, newly acquired Nathanial Lowe at DH, Abraham Toro surviving another day playing first, and Wong in at catcher to give Narvaez an extra day’s rest ahead of what should be a heavier workload in New York.
In many ways, we’ll watch tonight with an eye on the future as a bit of a fall chill enters the air.
