Red Sox at Angels lineups: Hottest team versus hottest player, Round 1

The Red Sox head to Orange County to face Shohei Ohtani and the rest of the Angels tonight behind Martín Pérez (9:38 p.m., NESN, ESPN out-of-market).

Ohtani’s season is nearing Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa levels of interest within the baseball community, if not necessarily the world at large, but as part of the baseball community I pooh-pooh the world at large. I care about what we care about, and if we can’t care about the A.L.’s home run leader, who cannot stop hitting home runs by the way, who’s also a very good starting pitcher, then a pox on our collective house. The Angels lost the best player in baseball, except they didn’t, because they still hold the title, probably, though Jacob deGrom might beg to differ.

So might a bunch of Red Sox, but I doubt any of them could or would say anything bad about Ohtani. They know what’s up, and in the standings, it’s them, a full 10 games on the Yankees and 4.5 over the Rays. Great googly moogly, y’all. Anyhow good news: Xander Bogaerts is back after his off day. Also good news: Christian Arroyo is back! Alex Verdugo is out though, so Rafael Devers is hitting second. Here are the full lineups: