Red Sox at Blue Jays lineup: Brian Johnson starts, Dustin Pedroia sits

The Red Sox enter tonight’s game in Toronto (7:07 p.m., NESN) looking for both fourth win in a row, while the Blue Jays have two wins overall. As our Matt Collins wrote, you’re still always afraid of the Blue Jays heading north of the border, and they’ve played a lot of close games recently, even as they’ve suffered a spate of injuries. Josh Donaldson is out 2-4 weeks, Aaron Sanchez is on the 10-day DL and J.A. Happ left Sunday’s start with elbow inflammation. Even with those last two, the starting pitching has been fine, but the bullpen has hide-your-eyes awful.

On top of that, with the exception of Donaldson and Kevin Pillar, no one on the Jays has hit a lick. This is good news for Sox starter Brian Johnson, who will make his second career start tonight in place of Eduardo Rodriguez (paternity leave). Johnson’s a tinkering lefty who has faced a hard road back to the majors after his 2015 start, and for whom it is easy to root once you know his backstory.

He’ll be opposed by Marcus Stroman, the World Baseball Classic star and Jays workhorse who dazzles with an unusual arsenal, per our friends at Sons of Sam Horn. Dustin Pedroia is out of the starting lineup. Here are the full lineups: