With a week left before the trade deadline, the Detroit Tigers find themselves 6.5 games behind in the American League Wild Card standings. With a win yesterday in Boston, they are now 48-49. Tonight is the rubber game of their 3-game series with the Red Sox. Detroit can’t seem to get their pitching on track as it’s been awful this season. With the exception of David Price, the rest of their rotation have ERA’s over 4.00. Their bullpen isn’t any better. Their combined ERA is 4.01 and in the Tigers last 10 games, their team ERA is a whopping 5.17. Even without Miguel Cabrera the offense is thriving, leading the league with a .278 batting average and scoring over 4.5 runs a game. They need to get the pitching in order real fast.
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Shane Greene last year showed some promise in his rookie season, but this year he’s regressed big time. He is 4-7 with a 6.52 ERA in 15 starts. Last year he struck out an average of 9 batters every 9 innings, but this year he’s only K’d 47 batters in 77 innings. He’s been even worse in his last 6 starts giving up 32 earned runs in 24 innings and 9 home runs allowed. This will be his 3rd start against Boston dating back to last year. He hasn’t fared so well against them. He’s 0-1 with a 11.25 ERA.
The Boston Red Sox season is pretty much over except to play spoilers in the American League East. They have lost 9 of their last 10 games and fallen 12 games behind in the division and 9.5 back in the Wild Card standings. In those last 10 games they are hitting a measly 2.30 and have a 4.81 team ERA. We talked about how bad Detroit’s starting pitching was, well the Red Sox are worse. Their starters have an ERA of 4.80 for the season, while their usually potent offense ranks only in the middle of the pack in the Majors.
Rookie Eduardo Rodriguez came onto the scene in late May and won his first 2 starts and allowed only 1 run combined in his first 3 starts. So why does he have a 4.64 ERA? Well the Blue Jays hit him for 9 runs on June 14th, the Orioles for 6 two starts later, and most recently the Angels bombed him for 7 runs in only an inning and two-thirds. He might need some more seasoning in AAA.
It’s not the most attractive game of the day, but it is Sunday Night Baseball so we have to give our readers something. Based on the pitchers I would have to take the over even though it’s set at 9.5.
Pick: OVER 9.5 +110
