Hopefully the Sox will not have the same fate that the other two AL East teams had when they played the Nationals, as the Yankees and Toronto each lost 2 out of three to the Nats. That is the best I can do to make it sound like the Sox shouldn't blow this team out.
Tonight the Sox send Penny to the hill. With Dice-K ending up on the DL Penny's place in the rotation seems to be safe for now. Still with a team that has prospects like Bowden and Buchholz you better be pitching well. The good news is that Penny has been. He is 6-2 on the year and hasn't let up a run over the last 11 innings pitched. The Nationals counter with lefthander John Lannan who is 4-5 with a 3.38 ERA. He has been awesome lately going 2-0 over his last three starts and only letting up 3 runs over those three starts (23 1/3 innings). So as you can see this could be a low scoring game.
This game could be very close and Boston needs to get to the Nationals bullpen early in the game. It is the Sox offense that always worries me, so I would like to see their bats continue to heat up. Players like Pedroia really need to start getting it going so that players like Bay and Youk can put some runs on the board.
Game starts at 7:05 on NESN.
***UPDATE***
Lineups are in. Ortiz takes a seat tonight, and Lowell is back in the field. Here is what the rest of the lineup looks like...
1. Dustin Pedroia, 2B
2. J.D. Drew, RF
3. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
4. Jason Bay, LF
5. Mike Lowell, 3B
6. Jason Varitek, C
7. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
8. Nick Green, SS
9. Brad Penny, RHP
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