The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 4-3, at Fenway Park on Wednesday to give themselves a chance to win this four-game set tonight. The Red Sox are 59-55 and in the Wild Card race while the Royals are only in the race to the bottom of baseball at 37-79.
Kansas City will send Austin Cox to the mound, and he will be opposed by Boston's James Paxton. Cox is 0-1 in 15 appearances, but only two of those have been starts. Paxton has made 14 starts and he’s 6-3 with a 3.60 ERA for Boston.
The Sox are big home favorites against the Royals in this game.
Royals vs. Red Sox odds, run line and total
Royals vs. Red Sox prediction and pick
With two lefties on the mound, the Red Sox have a considerable pitching advantage in this one. Mostly because their lefty will be out there a lot longer and bullpen depth isn’t exactly a huge strength of the 37-win Royals. Since July 1, their bullpen has a 6.07 ERA which is 29th in baseball and Cox’s longest outing this year was 4-2/3 innings back on July 3. He hasn’t gone longer than 1-1/3 since then.
That’ll be a lot of innings for a lackluster bullpen to get through, but at least they’re rested after Jordan Lyles went all eight innings in the loss yesterday. It’s also not a surprise that the Red Sox are better against lefties than the Royals are. Kansas City’s best hitter, Bobby Witt Jr. only has a .618 OPS against lefties since the start of July. If he can’t carry them then they’ll struggle to score against James Paxton.
Paxton has been solid for the Red Sox in the rotation. He wasn’t great last time out with just four runs over five innings, but that type of performance should be good enough against Kansas City today. I trust he keeps Boston in this game and then their best hitters against lefties, Justin Turner and Rob Refsnyder, will provide enough offense.
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