The Red Sox had a rough week. Coming off a weekend series in which they took two of three from the Angels and scored 19 runs, they looked rough getting swept by Minnesota. In the three games they scored a total of seven runs, and added two more tallies to the rapidly accumulating number of games in which they score two or fewer runs. They have achieved the feat 19 times this year, a whopping 40.4% of their games. This team was constructed to be destructive on offense, but that has yet to pan out. Rusney Castillo was called up to provide some offense, Dustin Pedroia and Mookie Betts were flipped in the order, and David Ortiz was dropped to the 5-hole. These minor moves are not likely to punch the Sox into hyperdrive, but rather some natural regression to established career marks and some change in fortune on balls-in-play should get things moving in the right direction. This weekend the Red Sox continue their road trip, battling the Rangers who took two of three from the Sox in Fenway last week. The Sox won the series opener on Thursday night and the offensive-friendly Globe Life Park in Arlington might just be the medicine the Red Sox need.

Texas Rangers – Record (23 – 25) – Projected Record (80 – 82)

The Rangers have played just about to expectations thus far. They have won eight of their last ten games, running through Boston, New York and Cleveland. Josh Hamilton is back playing, which, depending on the player he is now, could make their offense scary. The team has posted a .274 TAv without Hamilton, which is the fifth best mark in the game. Shin-Soo Choo has found his stroke after an abysmal first month, Prince Fielder is absolutely crushing the ball (10 home runs, 181 wRC+), and while Adrian Beltre has yet to get going (.265 TAv, 91 wRC+) he is always lurking. The difficulty for the Rangers, as is typically the case, has been the pitching (4.20 ERA, 4.39 FIP). Losing ace Yu Darvish obviously hurt them, but even with him pitching every fifth day this team was not going to excel on the pitching front. Giving starts to Colby Lewis, Yovani Gallardo, Wandy Rodriguez and Ross Detwiler does not exactly instill confidence in the run prevention side of the game. All told, to this point in the season they have scored almost as many runs as they have allowed (214 RS, 227 RA), which more or less matches what PECOTA projects the rest of the way.

Probables:

Game 1: Steven Wright vs. Yovani Gallardo, Friday, 8:07pm EDT

Steven Wright and his knuckleball have been a decent fill-in for Justin Masterson in the Red Sox rotation, although his 4.98 FIP looks pretty ugly. In Wright’s two starts this year he has allowed five runs over 11.1 innings. He has dealt with base runners, averaging one per inning pitched, but has limited extra-base hits (4) and, in turn, run scoring. Tonight will be Wright’s fifth career start, and a good one could keep him in the running, along with Eduardo Rodriguez and Henry Owens, for a rotation spot going forward.

The Rangers acquired Gallardo in an offseason trade with the Brewers. Thus far, he has been considerably worse with the Rangers than he was in Milwaukee. His ERA and FIP are both above career marks, and the downward trend in his strikeout rate that began in 2012 has continued to his low mark this year at 16.5%, although on a positive note the declining walk rate that started the same year is down to a low point of 6.6%. Taken together these rates show that he has been working more in the strike zone, but allowing more contact. The Red Sox batters will need to be ready to swing the bat tonight. Gallardo has allowed two runs in all but one of his 10 starts this season. Against the Red Sox last week he went five innings, allowed 10 hits, two of which were bombs, four runs, and only struck out two batters. That start was Gallardo’s worst of the year by GameScore, and the Sox’s lone win of that series.

Game 2: Wade Miley vs. Chi Chi Gonzalez, Saturday, 7:15pm EDT

Looking at Miley’s overall season numbers shows a pitcher that you would be worried about taking the hill. His 4.47 ERA is nine percent worse than league average, although his 3.74 fielding independent mark (five percent better than league average) suggests he has been better. But Miley has been much better in his last three outings: 21.2 IP, 16 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 6 BB, 10 SO. It is worth noting that one of those three starts came against the Rangers. His walk (8.5%), strikeout (14.6%), and left-on-base (64.7%) rates have gradually regressed to career norms, which is a good sign for his figuring things out. Alex Skillin has more on Miley’s impressive month. Ideally Miley can build on his last few starts and keep the Rangers’ lineup in check again.

Chi Chi Gonzalez, who immediately jumps to the top of the best names in baseball list, will be making his major league debut on Saturday. Gonzalez, a 2013 first-round pick of the Rangers, was ranked as the team’s number two prospect by the Baseball Prospectus staff. He has not exactly been dominating at Triple-A Round Rock (4.15 ERA, 4.42 FIP) but the Rangers need someone who can give them five-plus innings and there are not available options on the major league roster. From the BP scouting report, Gonzalez throws four pitches: a fastball that runs 92-95 mph with lots of action, a slider in the mid-80s, a changeup in the same velocity range as the slider, and an occasional curveball. He has had trouble commanding his pitches, and as a result has walked 10.1% of the batters he has faced this year. He is also not striking batters out like he did while at the lower levels. In Double-A he was striking out 20.7% of the batters he faced, but this year at Triple-A that rate has dropped to 13.8%. The Red Sox should aim to be patient against him, and limit the much needed length he can offer the Rangers.

Game 3: Joe Kelly vs. Wandy Rodriguez, Sunday, 3:05pm EDT

There is a notion that Joe Kelly is pitching for his rotation spot this weekend, especially after Rodriguez came up and threw 7.2 strong innings of shutout ball. Kelly is a perplexing pitcher that seems to have great stuff but a difficulty knowing when and how to mix that stuff as he moves through a lineup. On Monday he did not get out of the second inning against a Twins team that owns the fifth worst offense in the league by TAv (.254). But, oddly enough, in his start before the disaster on Monday he held the Rangers, a strong offensive team, to two runs over seven innings of work (tied for his longest outing of the season), scattering seven hits, walking one and striking out seven. He needs to do something similar this weekend or he could find himself in the bullpen, or on a bus to Pawtucket.

Wandy Rodriguez will be the first left-handed starter the Red Sox have faced since Hector Santiago last Sunday. The Red Sox issues with lefties have been well documented. Rodriguez has pitched well this season, posting a 3.60 ERA, but that mark outperforms his fielding-independent number of 4.25 by a fair amount. He pitched very well against the Red Sox last week, holding them to four hits, and only one run, while walking two and striking out five. One thing the Red Sox may have in their favour is that Rodriguez has struggled in his starts in Globe Life Park. He has made two home starts, so small sample caveats apply, but in those starts he has yet to get out of the fifth inning, allowing nine runs in his nine total innings pitched.

Opposing Lineup:

The Rangers’ lineup has a lot of left-handed power. Navigating the Choo (7 HR, .440 SLG), Fielder (10 HR, .597 SLG), Beltre (6 HR, .417 SLG), Hamilton, and Moreland (5 HR, .541 SLG) three (or four) times a game is a significant challenge. Those numbers are current statistics for 2015 and therefore subject to some small sample variance, but the PECOTA projections for SLG also present a difficult row to hoe: .405, .459, .482, .461, and .405. Red Sox pitchers will need to tread carefully.

This lineup could look a little different for Saturday’s game against Wade Miley. I suspect that Delino Deshields Jr. will be inserted into the leadoff spot to play center field, with Leonys Martin sitting, and Kyle Blanks will be slotted in to play first base, moving Mitch Moreland to the bench. Blanks’ primary skill is hitting lefties (.308 TAv v. LHP, .252 TAv v. RHP), and while Deshields’ splits are not as defined due to limited appearances, Martin has struggled against lefties in his career (.220 TAv v. LHP, .270 TAv v. RHP).

Recap

Globe Life Park can be a bit of a launching pad and neither of these teams have pitched well this year. The Rangers are ranked 25^th with a 4.35 ERA (4.44 FIP), and the Red Sox are ranked 27^th with a 4.55 ERA (4.30 FIP). With that said, at this point I just don’t know what to expect from this Red Sox offense. Ideally they score more than 9 runs in this series, but if not still manage to scratch out a couple of wins. Their playoff odds are down to 30%, having dropped 11.6% over the last week. While it is still early in the season, and the AL East is a mess (nobody in the division has a winning record in May), it would be nice to see this team string together some series wins.

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The Red Sox had quite an interesting week. Coming off a bad series against the Yankees, in which they were swept and at times looked inept, things somehow got worse when they lost Hanley Ramirez to a shoulder injury in the first inning of Monday’s game against the Rays. They lost that game 5-1, again looking hapless at times. But then rode a pair of Mookie Betts’ bombs and another solid start from Rick Porcello to win the middle game of the series. Another Mookie homer made things interesting in the rubber match of the series but they ultimately took another series loss. This weekend the Red Sox continue their long stretch of games within the American League East, heading to Toronto for a battle with the Blue Jays.

Toronto Blue Jays – Record (14 – 15) – Projected Record (81 – 81)

The Blue Jays, like the Red Sox, have played below expectations thus far. Their offense is scary (currently tied for 10th by TAv at .270), but the pitching has been problematic (4.83 team ERA). The Jays are dealing with injuries to a key players (Jose Reyes, Jose Bautista) and have not had production from some of the younger players they expected to be ready for greater responsibility (Dalton Pompey, Aaron Sanchez, Miguel Castro). They have scuffled along to a 5-5 mark in their last 10, with a +9 run differential on the season that more or less matches what PECOTA projects the rest of the way.

Probables

Wade Miley vs. Aaron Sanchez – Friday, 7:07pm EDT

Miley has been a disaster for the Red Sox thus far. His 4.00 FIP suggests he has pitched better than his 7.15 ERA, but that 4.00 FIP mark is still below league average. Miley’s issues thus far are not really a case of being unlucky (.303 BABIP), but rather a case of lacking control (his 10.9 BB% is up 3.5% from his career level) and allowing more contact than usual (his 12.9 K% is down 5.4% from his career level). Regression in these numbers, and his remarkably terrible 47.6 left-on-base-percentage (LOB%), should get him back on track. Ideally he can build on his last start, when he held the Yankees to three runs over seven innings of work (his longest outing of the season), scattering seven hits, walking nobody and striking out three. This weekend will be a real challenge for Miley, as he will need to work through a right-hand-heavy Blue Jays lineup that can really put up runs.

Sanchez, the much-touted prospect for the Blue Jays, has struggled in his time in the rotation this season. He has thrown 25.1 innings for the Jays this season, has walked 20 batters and struck out 21. That is an ugly ratio. The lack of control has made it such that he has yet to get through six innings. His start against the Red Sox on April 27th was one of his better outings this season, as he struck out seven and only walked two. Coming into the weekend he has a 4.62 ERA and a 5.88 FIP. He is projected for a similar ERA but a one-run improvement in FIP (4.90). I suspect that if the Blue Jays can get someone to slot into the rotation via trade or from within the organization, Sanchez will be heading back to the bullpen, where he excelled in 2014.

Joe Kelly vs. Drew Hutchison – Saturday, 1:07pm EDT

Joe Kelly has been perplexing thus far. He has great stuff, but struggles to leverage that stuff and put together dominant starts. He has the fastest fastball in the league (96.4 mph) that he should be able to use to set up his secondary offerings. But his trouble commanding the pitch, and perhaps an over reliance on those secondary pitches, have limited his effectiveness. The good news is that he is striking out many more batters than he is walking, and an above average FIP (3.71), so that 5.72 ERA could see some reduction. He has given up five runs in each of his three starts, only one of which lasted at least 6.0 innings, which are both streaks he should aim to break this weekend.

In the eyes of many, 2015 was going to be the season that Hutchison took another step forward, improving on his 1.6 WARP 2014 season. PECOTA was not expecting much improvement, projecting him for 1.3 WARP. So far he has taken a step backward. He has allowed six runs in each of his last two starts, has only pitched more than six innings once. His 15.9 K% is a career low, and his 8.3 BB% is the second highest mark of his career. All of this adds up to a 7.47 ERA and 5.16 FIP, neither of which are at all desirable.

Clay Buchholz vs. R.A. Dickey – Sunday, 1:07pm EDT

I wonder if ‘Clay being Clay’ will ever become a phrase around Fenway Park. He is some sort of an enigma and on an outing-by-outing basis he is remarkably difficult to predict. He has made six starts this season with runs allowed totals as follows: 0, 10, 2, 1, 5, 5. Three good ones, and three bad ones. Runs allowed are certainly not the whole story, but they provide some insight into the roller coaster that has been Buchholz. His ERA is gross (6.03) but his 2.95 FIP suggests he has pitched much better than that ERA would suggest. He is striking batters out at a career high rate (27.4 K%), and walking batters at a career-low rate (6.9 BB%), but has been unlucky on balls in play (.407 BABIP). One of those bad starts (5 R in 2.2 IP) came against the Blue Jays last week, so hopefully he performs better on Sunday.

The pitcher of house Dickey has, much like the rest of the Jays rotation, performed poorly to date (4.38 ERA, 5.22 FIP). He has never fully shown his Cy Young form as a member of the Blue Jays, but has consistently thrown at least 200 innings for them. He is projected for around that mark this season. In his last start, against the Yankees, Dickey went eight innings, allowing one run on three hits, so perhaps he has figured something out with his knuckleball. That or the increase in temperature that came with getting to May was a natural aid. The current forecast for Toronto calls for rain on Sunday, which could mean the dome is closed, another supposed natural aid to the knuckler.

Opposing Lineup

The Blue Jays’ lineup has a lot of right-handed power. Navigating the Josh Donaldson (6 HR, .374 OBP), Jose Bautista (5 HR, .344 OBP), and Edwin Encarnacion (4 HR, .271 OBP) sequence three (or four) times a game is a significant challenge for opponents. Edwin has been struggling so far this season, but he is still a threat.

1. Devon Travis – 2B -R
2. Josh Donaldson – 3B – R
3. Jose Bautista – RF – R
4. Edwin Encarnacion – DH – R
5. Justin Smoak – 1B – L
6. Russell Martin – C R
7. Kevin Pillar – LF – R
8. Michael Saunders – CF – L
9. Ryan Goins – SS – L

To some extent the lineup as written above depends on Bautista being inserted back into the outfield. If his shoulder is better and he feels he can throw the ball then this is the lineup the Red Sox are most likely to see. If he is still dealing with soreness and needs to DH then Encarnacion will play first base, and Ezequiel Carrera (or Danny Valencia) will be the right fielder, moving Justin Smoak to the bench. If Bautista is playing rightfield, Valencia will probably be the first baseman on Friday against Miley, as his primary skill is hitting lefties (.315 TAv v. LHP, .203 TAv v. RHP). The Saturday and Sunday games will probably involve Smoak or Carrera.

Recap

What does all of this mean? Well, expect plenty of runs and probably a bunch of homers. The Rogers Centre is a launching pad and these two teams have spent the first month of the season exchanging the honour of worst ERA in the league. As noted, the Blue Jays are currently ranked 28th with a 4.83 ERA, and the Red Sox are ranked 29th with a 4.86 ERA. Fielding independent numbers don’t tell a much better story for these teams, as the Jays are last in the league with their 4.81 FIP, and the Red Sox are 23rd at 4.31. All told, these teams were built around scoring a lot on offense and hoping the dam doesn’t break on the pitching and defense side of things. It could be a wild series.

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