Red Sox at Phillies lineups: Staying ahead of the game

The surging Red Sox look to stay ahead of their fellow red-hot AL East competition when they face the Phillies tonight behind Nathan Eovaldi (7:15 p.m., FOX).

The Sox are back to winning every day, but they’re not the only ones; the Rays are working on an eight-game winning streak, and sit just one game back of our heroes. Eovaldi’s coming off a strange start on Sunday where he looked bad early but pitched just long enough to qualify for what would have been the win against the Angels, but then the Mike Trout bloop was followed by the Shohei Ohtani homer that hasn’t landed yet, and the Sox lost. He’ll hope for better luck tonight against top Phillies prospect Spencer Howard. Phillies President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski, who you might recognize as the architect of the best Red Sox team of all time (I sure do!), said Howard’s innings are going to be monitored, so don’t expect a complete game or anything. Also because the Sox hitters are very good.

Alex Cora and company graced us with the lineups early goday, which is good because my impending Joker-fication over these stupid things was starting to spread to Matt, and he’s too valuable to go down that path. I’m expendable. Anyhow, with Alex Verdugo out with an injury, the lineup has been shuffled. Danny Santana is playing center field and batting fifth; Kiké Hernández is in the leadoff spot and playing second, but Rafael Devers is behind him. Also, Christian Vázquez gets the day off and Eovaldi has to hit because the N.L. is still silly. Categorically not sorry if this offends, though this was funny:

Whatever. No comments about the Phillies lineup because they’re bootyfaces. Here is the order in which said booytfaces are batting: