The Boston Red Sox will welcome in the Seattle Mariners for a three-game series. The Red Sox are coming off one of their worst showings of the season after being swept by the St. Louis Cardinals, while the Mariners come in off taking two out of three against the Detroit Tigers. The series is set to being on Monday with all three games scheduled to start at 7:10 PM.
Red Sox Projected Starting Pitchers
Game 1: Tanner Houck (3-2, 5.26 ERA)
Tanner Houck will get the series started for the Red Sox as he makes his eighth start of the season. His last start came against the Phillies on May 7th an outing, in which he took his second loss of the season. He went 5.2 innings giving up three runs on five hits. In his career against the Mariners, he has made four appearances with one of them being a start and he is 1-0 pitching 10.1 innings and striking out 16.
Game 2: Nick Pivetta (2-3, 6.23 ERA)
Nick Pivetta is making his eighth start of the season. is last start came against the Atlanta Braves last Tuesday, a game in which the Braves hit him hard and scored seven runs on eight hits. In his career against the Mariners, Pivetta has made one start going six innings and not factoring in the decision in that outing. He gave up two runs on one hit while walking three and striking out four in that start. Pivetta has been in question as of late about if he’d be the odd man out when Garrett Whitlock is set to return; Pivetta himself seems determined that he will stay in the rotation, this start could go into the decision of what will happen next.
Game 3: Brayan Bello (2-1, 5.01 ERA)
Brayan Bello is making his sixth start of the season, he is coming off his best start of the season if not his young career against the Braves last Wednesday. Bello was dealing against one of the best lineups in the league until the sixth inning when he gave up a big home run to Ronald Acuna Jr. and then left with runners on and ended up finishing with two earned runs on six hits; he struck out five thought. Bello has never faced Seattle in his young career.
Red Sox Player To Watch:
Rafael Devers (.255/11/37)
Rafael Devers is entering this series riding a four-game hitting streak in which in those four games he is five for 14 with a double and three RBI. In his career against Seattle, he is a .333 hitter going 40 for 120 with nine home runs and 24 RBI. Devers will be key to the Red Sox having any shot at winning this series and getting things back on track.
Prediction
The Red Sox have fallen back to last place after the sweep by the Cardinals, a series in which the Red Sox should have won two of the three games but Kenley Jensen blew the first two games after stellar outings by Chris Sale and James Paxton. This series will be tough for the Red Sox but the Mariners have lost Robby Ray for the season and will not have to face Logan Gilbert as he pitched Sunday. The Mariners however have some solid pitching aside from those two and the Red Sox will see them in George Kirby, Luis Castillo, and Marco Gonzales. The Red Sox should take two out of three from Seattle that will depend on how Houck and Pivetta pitch, I think they for sure can win the Bello start. So I’ll go two out of three and the Red Sox get themselves out of the basement of the American League East.
