Cleveland Indians-Boston Red Sox Series Preview

Cleveland Indians-Boston Red Sox Series Preview 5/20-5/22

The Cleveland Indians (20-17) head to Beantown to take on the Boston Red Sox (25-16) in a three-game series at historic Fenway Park. The Indians enter the series in second place in the American League Central, 2.5 games back of the front-running Chicago White Sox. The Red Sox come into the series tied for first place in the American League East with the Baltimore Orioles and are effectively tied for the best record in the American League (along with the White Sox and Orioles).

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The Indians will send to the hill ace Corey Kluber followed by Trevor Bauer and Danny Salazar. The Red Sox will counter with right-handers Clay Buchholz, Joe Kelly, and Rick Porcello. Salazar will look to continue his dominant start, where he’s been looking like the Indians Ace even if Kluber still holds that title. In eight starts this year, Salazar is 4-2 with a 1.80 ERA, 2.62 FIP, and amazing 10.98 K/9.

Outfielder Rajai Davis will also look to continue his amazing hot streak as so far this week he’s batting a scorching .563/.682/1.125. That’s a 1.807 OPS for you non-math majors. He also has two home runs, nine RBI, and 10 runs scored. Maybe even more impressive is his six walks to five strikeouts and 27.2% walk-rate. Designated hitter Carlos Santana moves back to the leadoff spot tonight as well as he’s coming off a two-homer game of his own last night in Cincinnati. Here are the starting lineups for both clubs in tonight’s game, the first of the three-game set:

Keys to the Series

The Indians have been some kind of hot streak at the plate as a team. Over the last four games they are averaging 10.75 runs per game. On the season, the Indians are now second in the American League, scoring 4.89 runs per game. The team scoring more in the American League though? Well, that would be the Boston Red Sox, who are averaging nearly a run more per game at 5.85. In fact, the Red Sox lead all of baseball in both runs per game and wRC+ (weighted runs created) as a team at 127.

If the Indians want any chance of winning this series they’ll have to find ways to keep the Red Sox off the board, as no matter how hot the offense has been, they aren’t likely to win many shootouts with Boston. The Indians will need Corey Kluber to step up. Interesting enough, Despite his 4.30 ERA, Kluber has actually pitched well this year, posting a very solid 2.96 FIP and an xFIP identical to that of Danny Salazar (3.39).

Unfortunately, this hasn’t resulted in wins yet for Kluber as he’s just 2-5 on the year, and he’s coming off two of his rougher starts of the year against Houston and Minnesota. Over his previous three starts though Kluber had a 1.13 ERA and a ridiculous 23:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio, proving the “Klubot” we all know and love is still in there, capable of dominating a game.

Next: The Rajai Effect

First pitch in tonight’s matchup is at 7:10 pm. This will be the final series between the Indians and the Red Sox this year; however, there is still one more game to be played. The two teams will need to make up their postponed game from back on April 7th in Cleveland later this season. So far each team has won one game this year in the season series.