Joe Girardi has been destroyed in the media over the course of the last few days for the way he handled Nathan Eovaldi in his most recent start, pulling him from the game relatively early on.
Considering the fact that Sunday's game for the New York Yankees (45-39 SU, -1.38 Units) is the last game before the All-Star break, there's a good chance that the Boston Red Sox (41-45 SU, -10.44 Units) won't see a lot of Eovaldi in this game either.
PITCHING MATCHUP
The big stat you need to know about Eovaldi is as follows: Batters are hitting .372 against him after he has thrown 75 pitches in a game.
That's why it was so interesting to see Girardi pull him out of his Tuesday start against the A's with a 3-2 lead in the sixth inning.
Eovaldi leads the team with eight wins, but that 8-2 record isn't indicative of how well he legitimately has pitched. The righty only has 67 strikeouts in 93 innings of work, and live bettors should be prepared for a very short leash on him in this one.
Boston's pitching staff has been brutal this year, but Wade Miley, Sunday's starter has been a reasonable addition.
He, too has eight wins to his credit, and in fact, his numbers are basically just like those of Eovaldi.
Considering the fact that Miley hasn't completed seven innings since June 5, we wouldn't suspect him to do so in this one either, especially with more pitchers available in relief than usual with the days off ahead.
ADVANCED STATS
The Red Sox already have one of the worst defenses in all of baseball, especially in the infield. However, they don't have Dustin Pedroia for the rest of the first half of the year due to the fact that he is on the DL, and John Farrell has been using David Ortiz more often at first base thanks to Mike Napoli not being able to hit his way out of a wet paper bag.
Big Papi is clearly not amused, as he has spoken out about playing in the field to the media in recent days.
Something is going to have to give for the Sox at first. Either they are going to have to put up with Ortiz and his atrocious -7.0 defensive rating per FanGraphs, or they'll have to rely upon Napoli and his .192 average and .652 OPS. Either way, live bettors know that Boston will be in some trouble.
TALKING BULLPENS
Here's where it gets a little interesting for these two teams on the final day of the first half of the year.
Boston has been holding back Justin Masterson from starting, which insinuates that he'll get to throw at least some point between now and the All-Star break. He hasn't pitched since July 3, and he has been incredibly ineffective when he has been on the mound of late, so know that he could be called upon if he doesn't pitch in this series before Sunday.
The Yankees don't really have the benefit of turning to another starter in this one. It should be noted that Adam Warren could pitch a few innings if he really needed to, but the fact that he is more or less just being groomed to be a reliever at this point suggests to us that Girardi won't have a choice but to use him for two frames or fewer if he does call for his number out of the pen.
We're still not all that confident in the growing ERAs of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller late on in games for the Yanks, nor do we believe that Chasen Shreve and Justin Wilson, two overused arms for our money, will continue their hot pitching streaks either.
The MLB lines for this Sunday contest will first be released by BookMaker Sportsbook. Gamble on the game between every half inning with BookMaker's live betting feature. Along with an adjusted in-game moneyline, you can wager on what will happen in the next at-bat or how many runs will be scored in the next inning. Live betting is the most exciting way to play!
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