Or perhaps not.
One day after the trade deadline, the Red Sox and Indians will take the field looking much the same as they did the day before. There will be no Ubaldo Jimenez until the Indians head elsewhere, and the Red Sox debut of Erik Bedard won't come until the last game of the series.
We're the same as we were yesterday, generally, but it's been a bit longer since these two teams have met on the field. Back then, the Sox had just barely clawed their way over .500, and the Indians were on top of not just the league, but all of baseball. But the Sox took 2-of-3, and that's basically how things have been going since then. Now the Sox are the ones in the conversation for the best of all baseball, and the Indians hover just over .500, hoping that their acquisitions will keep them in the weak A.L. Central race.
Let's hope the Sox can put a damper on their post-deadline glow.
Boston Red Sox (66-40)
- Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
- Dustin Pedroia, 2B
- Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
- Kevin Youkilis, 3B
- David Ortiz, DH
- Carl Crawford, LF
- Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
- Josh Reddick, RF
- Marco Scutaro, SS
John Lackey is on a roll, whether you want to admit it or not. He should only really be responsible for about four runs over is last four starts, and even if we ignore the insanely bad defense he's had to live through at times, his 21:3 K:BB in that period is, simply put, gaudy.
Remember back on April 5 when Josh Tomlin held the Sox to just one run over seven innings? No? Well, hopefully the Sox do, and hopefully they've learned from it. Tomlin gets a lot of guys on bad pitches put into play, so the Sox need to be especially selective tonight--though he'll put enough pitches in the zone to make that difficult.
