Red Sox vs. Twins lineups: If winning was easy, everyone would do it

The Red Sox, recently allergic to easy wins, look to stretch their winning streak to three against the Twins tonight behind Nick Pivetta (7:10 p.m., NESN).

Tonight marks the likely first game of the definitive post-Matt Barnes-as-certain-closer era after two straight blowups have continued Barnes’s difficult second half and probably prompted a perhaps temporary, but perhaps permanent, shuffling of the deck. There are no more games to give away in the name of pride or stubbornness, and Garrett Whitlock (presumably) should help the Sox lock down the end of games better than Barnes has done. Or maybe it’s Hirokazu Sawamura. Or Ryan Brasier, eventually. Who knows? The only certainty is that Barnes is gonna get a break. Which means we’re all getting one, at least emotionally.

Would it be too much to ask for a drama-free win tonight? Maybe, but we can do it anyway. The batting order is the same as yesterday, the only change being Kyle Schwarber and J.D. Martinez swapping DH and LF duties. Here’s to a nice, calm evening, and here are the lineups: