Eduardo Rodriguez is back on the mound Friday night, hoping for a night just as productive, but ultimately perhaps more encouraging than his last.
We've mentioned it enough times over the past few days, but while Rodriguez was certainly capable of keeping runs off the board against New York, he didn't do it in the most sustainable of ways. That being said, the Yankees are not a terribly strikeout-happy team, for all that they're not a very hit-happy team either. The Twins, on the other hand? If he can't miss these bats, it's going to be a very real cause for concern.
To do that, it would help for Rodriguez to have his changeup working, particularly given that Minnesota can actually line up some righties against him. He was almost exclusively a fastball - slider pitcher against New York, and it's hard to make that particular combo work against opposite-handed hitting.
For the Red Sox' part, it's business as usual in the batting order, with Leon back in for the more traditional catching duty. There's nothing much in Kyle Gibson's performance this year which suggests the Sox should struggle here, but stranger things have happened.
First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. ET with broadcasts on NESN and WEEI.