The Red Sox have been on quite a roll since the All Star break, winning 4 of their last 6 games and taking both series. The Mariners, on the other hand, haven’t won a game since July 5th – Felix Hernandez started that game too. They’re kicking off a very rough stretch of game in the A.L. East, and the Sox are happy to start the tour. By now, you have a pretty good idea of where the Sox stand: First in all offensive categories, first in the A.L. East, second best record in baseball. It’s hard to not feel good about this team. Their pitching could use some work, but with players like Jacoby Ellsbury and Adrian Gonzalez swinging bats like they already know where the ball will land, it’s not as bad as it could be, that’s for sure. It’s also hard to be afraid of a team who is 18-28 for road games. Only time will tell, but the Sox aren’t afraid of anybody; certainly not Seattle.
Pitching Matchup: John Lackey (7-8, 6.70 ERA) vs. Felix Hernandez (8-8, 3.26 ERA)
If the Sox have one glaring weakness (hint: they do) it’s in the form of their pitching. 15th overall team ERA, 27th in Quality Starts, the Sox have had to rely heavily on defense and hitting to get them out of a lot of game this season. I’ve never liked John Lackey. Nobody would confuse me with a John Lackey “fan”. I have many reasons. First of all, look at him.
He looks like the kind of baseball player Fred Durst would root for. Secondly, he has this nasty habit of blaming every mistake on the team instead of taking responsiblity. Baseball is largely a game of one on one matchups. A pitcher will often credit the team with helping him out when he has a good day, but a pitcher shouldn’t blame the team when he has a bad one because, more often than not, the team is playing at the same level it usually does. Thirdly, he’s super inconsistent. Lastly, look at him. AGAIN. DO IT.
As far as his inconsistency goes, when he’s on, he’s great. On July 9th, he helped pitch a shutout against the Orioles. Earlier, on April 24th, he had 8 shuout innings against the Angels. But his lowest ERA this season was 5.65 on April 30th. It jumped to 7.16 after he gave up 8 runs during his next start, and this is the lowest it’s been since then. Good pitchers don’t improve to 6.70. Lackey has poor pitch selection as well, relying on his slider to try and get him out of tough situations, which in turn leads to him getting lit up. On avergae, his slider gives up 2.23 more runs over 100 pitches than average. His changeup is good, but that’s probably because he’s only thrown it 94 times this season. He’s thrown 1473 pitches total, so when batters never see a pitch and it’s a good one, you will get some people out. His curveball and fastball give up 3 runs above average, which is not great, but his insistence on using his slider (22% of his pitches) is really what keeps getting him in to hot water.
On the other hand, Felix Henandez is a very good pitcher on a very bad team. In 21 starts this season, only 6 of them have resulted in him giving up more than 3 runs. That’s a very good number. His FIP is at 2.97, which is CRAZY good. A K/9 of 8.66, a BB/9 of 2.61, and a HR/9 of 0.65 all add up to a dominant, dangerous pitcher going against the Red Sox tonight. Over the past three years, he’s kept his ERA at 1.77 when pitching at Fenway, and is 2-1 agains the Red Sox. Felix’s fastball is good for .23 runs above average, while the rest keep batters on their toes. His curveball has some awesome break and his slider slides really well at times. The Sox will need to pound at Hernandez all nine innings if they want a chance to get out of this one with a W. King Felix is no pushover, and he won’t let anyone pretend otherwise for even a second.
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