The Red Sox look to win their second game of the year (and the week) against the Rays tonight (7:10 p.m., NESN, ESPN+) when they face down the formidable Tyler Glasnow and the rest of the defending American League champs.
Martín Pérez starts for Boston a day after Nick Pivetta’s strong, belabored performance; in the very early going, aside from Garrett Richards’s awful outing, starting pitching has not been the problem. Good for those of us rocking our #PérezDay shirts, especially if we wore it yesterday in erroneous anticipation of a Monday start, then washed it and put it back on today for luck, not that I know or am anyone like that.
The Sox lineup is identical to yesterday’s with one major exception: Christian Arroyo is playing second and batting leadoff in place of Kiké Hernández, which is... not ideal, but you can see how Alex Cora considers this a solid batting order, and the identity of the guy at the top only matters so much for a single game. Arroyo’s light-hitting ways make it less than ideal, but so was trading Mookie Betts, so this is small potatoes in comparison and no, I’ll never stop. Anyhow it might not matter because Glasnow is extremely good, but it’s notable, hence this note.
The Rays, bless their black, predictably unpredictable hearts, start someone named Kevin Padlo at third base. You gotta hand it to them: they never stop Rays’ing. It’s a gift.
Game 5 vs. Rays
Lineup spot | Rays | Red Sox |
---|---|---|
Lineup spot | Rays | Red Sox |
1 | Yandy Díaz, 1B | Christian Arroyo, 2B |
2 | Randy Arozarena, RF | Alex Verdugo, CF |
3 | Mike Brosseau, 2B | J.D. Martinez, DH |
4 | Manuel Margot, CF | Xander Bogaerts, SS |
5 | Brandon Lowe, LF | Rafael Devers, 3B |
6 | Willy Adames, SS | Christian Vázquez, C |
7 | Francisco Mejía, C | Marwin González, 1B |
8 | Kevin Padlo, 3B | Hunter Renfroe, RF |
9 | Mike Zunino, C | Franchy Cordero, LF |
SP | Tyler Glasnow, RHP | Martín Pérez, LHP |