Back Boston Through Five at Home

Very few franchises have more of a storied rivalry than the Yankees and Red Sox. Even non-baseball fans recognize that these two are either the most known franchises, or that they have a heated rivalry. So, of course, Major League Baseball puts them on weekend series constantly, and ESPN features them as Sunday Night Baseball.

The Yankees send Jameson Tailon to the hill to try and take this rubber game from the Red Sox. I'm not too excited about his potential as this is a situation where he pitches the worst in his splits. As an away pitcher, and at night, his ERA is around 4.30. That's not awful, but it isn't as strong as his home, or even day game, ERA. This is amplified in his two starts against Boston this season. In his first one, at Fenway, he was rocked for six earned runs in five innings. Then, the very next start, at home, he went six innings and allowed just one earned run. In looking at his game log, it looks like he either pitches a great game, or a terrible one, with very little in between. Oddly enough, he also tends to bounce back after most bad starts. Bad news for the Yankees, he had a good start in his last outing.

Michael Wacha has been very good for the Red Sox when he is available. Unfortunately for them, he hasn't pitched since June. We've seen some pitchers come back from the Injured List and perform very well, and others need some time to really settle in. I'd still expect Wacha to be able to go five innings even if he is on a limited pitch count. He's fairly efficient and doesn't tend to strike out a ton of guys. It really is the walks that can hurt him. If he is limited to less than five innings, that spells disaster for the Red Sox as their bullpen has one of the higher ERA's in all of baseball.

I think the best play in this game is to take the Red Sox through five innings at +112.