Tim Wakefield will try for his 200th career win Friday night as the Red Sox take on the weak-hitting White Sox in Chicago.
It's been 20 seasons in the making for Wakefield, but the Red Sox' veteran knuckleballer is finally just one win away from that landmark number.He's seemed to break another record or reach another milestone every game these days--he picked up his 2000th strikeout in Boston in his last start--but none compares to this one.
If Wakefield can keep the Knuckleball dancing, then he has exactly the lineup he'd want to help get him there:
Boston Red Sox (64-39)
- Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
- Dustin Pedroia, 2B
- Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
- Kevin Youkilis, 3B
- David Ortiz, DH
- Carl Crawford, LF
- Josh Reddick, RF
- Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
- Marco Scutaro, SS
He also has one of the lineups he'd probably be happiest facing:
Chicago White Sox (51-52)
- Juan Pierre, LF
- Omar Vizquel, SS
- Paul Konerko, 1B
- Adam Dunn, DH
- Carlos Quentin, RF
- A.J. Pierzynski, C
- Alexei Ramirez, 2B
- Alejandro De Aza, CF
- Gordon Beckham, 2B
Pitching Matchup: Tim Wakefield (6-3, 5.15 ERA) vs. Gavin Floyd (8-9, 4.11 ERA)
Other than Quentin and Konerko, that's one of the weakest-hitting groups that Tim Wakefield will face all year, but it's rarely the case that that really matters when the Knuckleball is in play. One of the greater issues is that the White Sox have a good few guys who can hit a home run, but just don't seem to square up the ball often enough. Is Tim Wakefield just the guy to get Adam Dunn, for example, off the schneid?
Gavin Floyd is probably the weak link in the Chicago Rotation this year, not counting Jake Peavy, but that's not saying much at all. Floyd has been his usual supremely-reliable self this year, making up for any poor games with outings of seven or eight innings and one or two runs. He's one of those guys the Sox will really want to jump on early, since he loves to get ahead in the count and is prone to settling in for those long outings that make him so valuable.