With their season quite likely on the line, and a lefty on the mound, the Sox will turn to no less than the B-team to help them stay alive in the wild card race.
While this is certainly the sort of lineup Red Sox fans may have expected to see around the end of the season, it's for all the wrong reasons. The playoffs are far from assured, and Terry Francona is not simply resting up for October. Instead, this motley crew has been scrabbled together to deal with both injuries to starters, and the difficulties others have with lefties.
All the Sox can hope for now is some revitalizing magic.
Boston Red Sox (89-71)
- Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
- Dustin Pedroia, 2B
- David Ortiz, DH
- Jed Lowrie, 3B
- Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
- Ryan Lavarnway, C
- Darnell McDonald, RF
- Carl Crawford, LF
- Marco Scutaro, SS
Hey, look, Lavarnway is still alive!
Baltimore Orioles (68-92)
- Robert Andino, 2B
- J.J. Hardy, SS
- Nick Markakis, RF
- Vladimir Guerrero, DH
- Matt Wieters, C
- Adam Jones, CF
- Mark Reynolds, 1B
- Chris Davis, 1B
- Nolan Reimold, RF
Pitching Matchup: Erik Bedard (5-9, 3.50) vs. Zach Britton (11-10, 4.44 ERA)
In a normal world, on a normal day, the Red Sox do what they've done to Zach Britton before and unload on the young lefty for lots of runs while Erik Bedard recovers from his defense-induced meltdown to put up a rare Red Sox quality start.
However, this is September, and these are the 2011 Red Sox. And so any prediction that doesn't include 5 innings of the Boston Bullpen and at most 5 runs for their offense is unrealistic at best.