RED SOX (Wright) @ RANGERS (Gallardo)
Take: RANGERS -117
There was finally some good news for Red Sox Nation on Thursday night. Highly touted prospect Eduardo Rodriguez enjoyed a spectacular debut, the Bosox actually managed to plate five runs,. and the struggling entry got itself a needed win with the 5-1 nod over the Rangers.
Here’s the bad news. Rodriguez will not be allowed to pitch on zero days rest, and the Boston offense was yet again very inefficient despite the victory. The Red Sox had 19 batters reach base on Thursday evening. So scoring only five runs isn’t exactly reason to schedule a victory parade. Nice win to be sure, but in the process the Red Sox managed to also hit into a whopping five double plays. I’m glad the Sox won, both as a fan and as a bettor as they were a play last night. But let’s face it, the fact is that without Rodriguez pitching as brilliantly as he did in his first big league start, Boston could well have been staring at yet another loss.
Steven Wright will make the start tonight, and he’s somewhat tough to project, as is so often the case with knuckleball specialists. If his pitches are dancing, he’ll be a handful for the Texas hitters. If Wright ends up missing in the strike zone, he’ll get beaten up by some decent Rangers hitters, including the very hot Prince Fielder.
Yovani Gallardo will throw for the home team, and while his ace level days are long gone, Gallardo is pitching respectable ball for the Rangers. Gallardo will get to face a Red Sox lineup that just isn’t that daunting right now. That might not be the case on paper, as there are some very talented players in the Boston bating order. But they haven’t hit as a team for some time now and again, whole they scored five runs on Thursday, it was hardly what one could possible term as any kind of a breakout with those five GIDP’s.
The hot run for Texas has been a surprise, and now that they’ve lose a couple in succession, it’s probably somewhat likely we’re going to witness some regression as I don’t see this as a strong team. But I don’t mind the matchup on the mound here as I’m giving Gallardo a definite edge over Wright. And I didn’t see any realistic improvement from the recently anemic Boston offense as they did very little against Nick Martinez and the late game outburst was mostly thanks to some bad bullpen work by the Rangers. I see Texas as the more likely winner tonight, and the price is acceptable enough to tab the Rangers as the free play for the day.
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