Friday night baseball and we will see the Boston Red Sox travel to the Bronx to take on the New York Yankees in game 1 of their 3 game series. The game is scheduled for a 7:05 (ET) pm start time and it will be televised live locally. Currently the odds have New York favored at -139, while Boston is dogs of +131. The total for the game sits at 9.5 runs.
Free Analysis: The Boston Red Sox would have to sweep a three-game series at the rival New York Yankees just to get back to .500. Recent history suggests that will be a problem. The Red Sox have dropped 10 of 15 this month and are 5-10 in their last 15 against New York. Boston spent the week in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with a Yahoo! Sports report detailing disharmony in the clubhouse and a meeting last month in which players reportedly lobbied ownership to fire manager Bobby Valentine. The Red Sox dropped two of three to the Baltimore Orioles this week and have lost four of the first seven on a 10-game road trip. David Ortiz (Achilles) has been out since July 17 and will miss the series. After the Red Sox got eight strong innings from Clay Buchholz in Thursday's victory, they'll give the ball to Franklin Morales (3-3, 3.29) for the series opener in the Bronx. The left-hander's worst start of the season came against the Yankees on July 7, when he surrendered six runs in 3 1-3 innings of a 6-1 defeat. Morales has given up seven home runs in 2012, and four came in that contest alone - two by Jones, one by Nick Swisher and one by Jayson Nix. That outing came at Fenway Park, though, and Morales has been much better on the road. He has a 1.86 ERA in 16 appearances - four starts - away from Boston, including two hitless innings of relief at Yankee Stadium on July 27. The Yankees (70-48) enter this series with a six-game division lead over Baltimore and sporting the AL's best record after taking three of four from West leader Texas, though they fell 10-6 in Thursday's finale. Ichiro Suzuki went 3 for 3 and Andruw Jones had a two-run homer, but New York failed to complete the sweep and suffered its second loss in nine games. The Yankees' two most recent losses prior to Thursday were charged to Phil Hughes (11-10, 4.44 ERA), whose turn comes up again Friday. The right-hander failed to make it out of the fifth inning of either of those outings. Hughes matched a season high with seven runs allowed in four innings of Sunday's 10-7 defeat at Toronto. He may benefit from a return home, where he's 4-0 with a 2.00 ERA in his last five starts. One of those wins was a 10-3 triumph over Boston on July 27, when he gave up three runs - all on solo homers to Carl Crawford, Dustin Pedroia and Jarrod Saltalamacchia - over seven innings. New York is averaging averaging 7.4 runs per contest while swatting 23 home runs vs Boston this year. The nine games between the Yankees and Red Sox this season have taken an average of 3 hours, 30 minutes to play. Only one of them was completed in less than three hours.
Free Pick: With the Orioles and Rays being as hot as they are I do not expect the Yanks to take this series so lightly. Phil Hughes has struggled in his last 2 starts, but both were on the road and he has pitched very well at home this year. Phil had a rough outing back in mid June at home vs the Braves, but since then he has gone 4-0 with a 2.00 ERA in his last 5 starts, while overall he is 8-3 with 3.74 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP at home. Also, in his last 3 starts here vs the Yanks he is 2-1 with a 2.84 ERA. The Sox on offense haven't done very well vs righties away home, hitting just .251 and scoring 4.2 rp/9 off of them. Franklin Morales has pitched well for Boston and he has allowed 3 ER's or less in 6 of his 7 starts this year, but his worse start of the year was vs the Yanks, in a game in which he allowed 6 ER's in just 3.2 innings of work. The Yanks offense averages 4.97 rpg at home, but vs leftioes they pit up 5.2 rp/9 innings. The Sox showed some heart in winning last night, but I feel that NY will play with plenty of heart in this series. Hughes Pitches well at home and their offense should get to Morales like in the earlier game, give NY a solid win in game one here.
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