The Red Sox play hosts to the Oakland Athletics this week, the first time the two teams will meet this season and the only series they will play until September. The Athletics come into Boston having lost 6 of their last 7, leaving them at 14-18 overall, 4.5 games behind the Mariners in the AL West. The A's have scored 117 runs this year, fifth worst in the American League, while compiling a 4.15 team ERA, also fifth worst in the AL. Basically, Oakland is not a particularly good team and is not playing well at the moment. This should be a good opportunity for the Sox to pick up some wins, but let's look at the pitching matchups to see how they can do it.
Game 1: Clay Buccholz vs Sonny Gray
Clay Buccholz is coming off his first strong performance of the year, working 7 solid innings against the Yankees. While his location was notably improved in his last outing, I am not going to let myself believe in his turnaround yet. However, pitching against a weak Oakland offense gives him a good chance to string together back-to-back impressive performances, which he will need in order to keep his spot in the rotation once Eduardo Rodriguez gets healthy.
On the other side of this one is Sonny Gray, the A's 26 year old ace and Vanderbilt alumni. Last year, Gray was 14-7 with a 2.37 ERA. He was an AL All-Star and finished third in the Cy Young voting (for best American League pitcher). However, this year Gray has gotten off to a mediocre start, giving up 3 runs or more in 4 of 6 appearances. In his last start, Gray gave up 7 runs in 7 innings against the Mariners in an 8-2 loss. I think this matchup favors the Athletics, despite the recent trends of both pitchers. I simply don't trust Buccholz, I've been through too much.
Game 2: Sean O'Sullivan vs Sean Manaea
This game features two largely untested starters named Sean, and fittingly the Irish guy is pitching for Boston while the Pacific Islander plays for Oakland. Sometimes the world makes sense. O'Sullivan is making his first big league start in a Red Sox uniform, but does have 52 starts at the major league level since 2009. He has a career ERA of 5.96, with 146 strikeouts and a whopping 109 walks in 303 IP. There is a good reason he has never been a major league pitcher for any extended length of time, but since the Red Sox decided to send Henry Owens down to the minors to figure out his control issues, somebody has to start.
As inexperienced as O'Sullivan is, Manaea is even more green. The Sidewinding lefty is a rookie this year, and will be making only his third career start on Tuesday. He has an unconventional delivery, but still gets decent velocity (92 MPH average fastball) with decent off-speed stuff to match. In each of his first two career starts, he has gone 5 innings while allowing 4 runs, so he doesn't appear to be anything special. Since I don't see any reason to expect excellence from either starter, I have to go with the superior offense, which no question belongs to the Boston Red Sox.
Game 3: Rick Porcello vs TBD
Rick Porcello takes the hill for Boston in the finale, bringing his 5-1 record and 2.95 ERA with him. He has been the only consistently dependable starter in Boston outside of Steven Wright, and has been solid to excellent since getting off the DL last August. He is coming off a 7 IP, 3 run performance in his first loss of the season, although I blame that game on Ron Kulpa's stupid face and his even stupider strike zone. Oakland has not announced a starter for this game, but we know it won't be Rich Hill or Kendall Graveman, both of whom pitched over the weekend. Frankly, I'd predict a Boston win no matter who they go with; Porcello has been reliable and the Red Sox lineup is simply much better than the Athletics'.
Bottom Line: Anything less than 2 Red Sox wins in 3 games would be a disappointment.
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