Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays Game 1 Predictions
Written October 10, 2008 by Jack Jones
It’s hard to believe that the Tampa Bay Rays are only four games away from reaching the World Series, especially when you look at this team’s losing past. Now the only team standing in their way are the Boston Red Sox, the defending World Champions. The action gets started on Friday night with Game 1 taking place at Tropicana Field. Tampa Bay is the early favorite to win at -115 at Sportsbook.com.
Boston was known as sort of a loser in their own way since they struggled through 86 years without a World Series, but now the team has captured two titles since 2004 and has a chance to repeat. All they have to do is get through a team that had never won more than 70 games in a season, and had the worst record in the league since the franchise was born in 1998.
All that changed in 2008 as the Rays piled up 97 wins, the best home record in baseball, and oh yeah, won the AL East over the Red Sox. Beating Boston in the standings means that this team has the confidence to do so in the series. It helps to have home field, where the Rays went 57-24 this year.
These two teams have history. The Red Sox have been beating up on their divisional foes for years going 111-58 all-time against Tampa. All that changed this year when the Rays took the series for the first time 10-8, going 6-0 in one-run games.
There is even more excitement for this series when you factor in how these two have gotten into some pretty heavy brawls over the years. Six times since 2000 these teams have cleared the benches, and most recently in June when eight players were suspended.
The Red Sox are coming off a fairly dominate showing against the American League favorites in the Los Angeles Angels. Winning three out of the four games, the Red Sox needed a walk-off single to close out the series 3-2 on Monday night. Jon Lester was phenomenal and will start Game 4 of this series. Tonight it’s up to Daisuke Matsuzaka who lasted five innings and gave up three runs in Game 2 against the Angels. He did go 1-0 with a 3.00 ERA this year against the Rays but has struggled lately in lasting only five innings in each of his three outings, striking out 17 but walking 11. Opponents hit just .211 off of Dice-K though as he piled up an 18-3 record. If you think he can keep going strong then the best odds on Boston are +110 at Bookmaker. Check out our MLB odds feed to see if there are any updates before placing your bets.
The Rays are going to rely on Evan Longoria in this one. The rookie was the team’s most valuable player even though he missed 40 games this season. He still hit .272 with 27 homers and 85 RBIs. he got the playoffs started off right with two home runs and three hits, but then followed it up with a 1-for-12 performance over the rest of the division series.
James Shields gets the start for the Rays tonight. It was Shields who cleared the benches after hitting Coco Crisp with a pitch. Shields went 6 1/3 innings and gave up three runs in the team’s Game 1 win over Chicago. He dominated the Red Sox at home this year, going 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA, but his two starts at Fenway Park where regrettable, going just 4 2/3 innings with a 21.21 ERA. Shields better watch out for David Ortiz, who is 7-for-14 with four doubles, two homers and six RBIs lifetime against the pitcher.
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