Red Sox vs. Blue Jays lineup: Oh, hello

Hello. My name is Bryan, and I’ll be supplying most of your lineups this season. Actually... the Red Sox will provide them, first to reporters, at which point they will be both aggregated to one of several daily fantasy and gambling related sites and blasted nigh-simultaneously across Twitter. Then I will transcribe them into a Google doc, upload the doc, and write about whatever comes to mind that day. I will try to have them up two hours before first pitch, though sometimes the managers will take their sweet time getting those names in, and I’ll have to get ‘em up later. Maybe this won’t be as much of a problem this year with these stupid 7:30 p.m. home starts, but never underestimate baseball’s ability to drive you nuts.

Anyhow all this process business is largely because I have no idea what to say here. Ryan Weber is starting, but I’m not sure, in most cases, if “starter” means much anymore if it’s not Nathan Eovaldi or Eduardo Rodriguez. Top prospect Nate Pearson is starting for Buffalonto, however, which is neat. (Other teams have what we call “elite pitching prospects,” and it’s apparently totally legal? I know, it’s confusing. You’d think we want in on that noise.) Also their top three hitters are second-generation players and it’s really weird, still. And Travis Shaw is batting cleanup. And they have Rowdy Tellez to beef away at DH. I like Rowdy.

I had to write about the Jays first because, as it turns out, Ron Roenicke might be one of those “wait forever to release the lineups” guys. Huge boo, if so. This really can’t be a day with too much mystery, and yet my man took his sweet time. The Giants play at 9:45 Eastern, and their lineups preceded Ron’s. All I have to say now that the lineup is out is that except for Alex Verdugo it looks very similar to last year. At least he hits seventh, and won’t have to reckon with the goddamn Mookie trade til the second inning, most likely.