Red Sox at Angels Lineups: No time to be tired

The Red Sox and Angels played 15 innings last night, going until about 12:30 AM local time and 3:30 AM out here on the East Coast. In other words, everyone is really tired including the players, the fans, the writers, the concession workers. Perhaps nobody is more tired than the pitchers, though, and the Red Sox find themselves in a tough situation there, too. Nathan Eovaldi pitched only four of those 15 innings, with the bullpen getting worked hard to make it through the rest of the game. It would be ideal to have a starter go lots of innings in this one.

That’s not going to happen. The Red Sox had been planning on going with a bullpen game on Saturday, so Josh Taylor is getting the start. The southpaw did pitch in Friday’s game, looking as bad as he has in some time, unable to find his control. This could actually be a case of the Red Sox using a “true” opener here, with Brian Johnson and Josh Smith being the two fresh arms in the bullpen. Taylor could pitch one inning before giving way to one of those two for about three or four innings in a perfect world. The one bit of good news is that reinforcements are on the way no matter way. Tomorrow is September 1, so fresh arms can be with the team on Sunday, including starter David Price. I’m not sure that’s much of a consolation for tired arms, but such is life in a playoff race.

Meanwhile, the offense is going to be the same as Friday. Might as well run it back given how hot this team has been, although they did get shut down for six innings in the previous game with the Angels retiring 20 in a row at one point.

The full lineups are below.