Ideally, tonight’s game will go much better than the last time Lucas Giolito took the ball in this building back on April 30th when he and the bullpen coughed up a 6-0 lead.
To be fair, Giolito’s followed
that up with an outstanding summer. However, he’s also shown recent signs of slippage, including walking 14 batters in his last four outings. Unfortunately, he’s probably going to have to be outstanding to win tonight because Kevin Gausman is on the hill for the Jays and he has a 0.90 ERA over his last four starts. He’s also pitched deep in those games (piling up 30 innings of work) while only walking four guys. If this pattern holds, get ready to spend a lot more time watching the Blue Jays bat tonight than the Red Sox.
As far as the lineup goes, Masataka Yoshida is batting cleanup again, which I find completely ridiculous given he has just four extra base hits (and zero home runs) over his last 29 games. He’s also posted a putrid .579 OPS over that stretch. It’s maddening a guy with those numbers is being given the opportunity to bat 4th in a game of this magnitude!
⚾️ First Pitch: 7:07 pm at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario
📺 TV: NESN
📻 Radio: WEEI
