Thursday, October 03, 2013

Avenge 2008

The Red Sox now have an opponent for the ALDS: the Tampa Bay Rays, who beat the Indians in Cleveland last night, 4-0 in the Wild Card playoff game.

Game 1 begins at 3 PM tomorrow at Fenway, with Jon Lester taking on Matt Moore.

The rest of the series will have John Lackey pitching Game 2, Clay Buchholz in Game 3, and if necessary, Jake Peavy in Game 4.

It appears the Red Sox will go with 11 pitchers for the ALDS, and there is a possibility that Felix Doubront maybe left off the roster, as he did not pitch well in his last few outings, and he got hit hard in Baltimore coming out of the pen on the last day of the season. Doubront, Franklin Morales and Matt Thornton appear to be line for the final pen spot.

The roster will be finalized shortly before game time on Friday.

The Red Sox faced the Rays 19 times in 2013, beating them 12 times.

And of course, they faced each other only once before in the postseason: 2008 ALCS, when the Red Sox came from 3-1 down in games (and 7-0 in the 7th inning) to force a Game 7 at Tampa Bay, that the Rays won and went to the World Series.

Game 2 will be on Saturday at 5:30 PM at Fenway. Game 3 will be Monday at St. Pete, Game 4 (if necessary) will be Tuesday, and Game 5 will be Thursday (back at Fenway if necessary). No times have been released yet for the two games at St. Pete.

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