After a week of great pitching matchups tonight we will see one that won't be making many headlines...Wake vs. Davies. At 43 years and 250 days old, Tim Wakefield will become the oldest Red Sox pitcher ever to start a game when he takes the hill against the Royals tonight, so maybe that will get some attention.
I expect big things from Wake tonight. The Royals are not a good hitting team, and Wakefield is healthy and when he is healthy he is very good. In his career Wake is 11-6 with a 3.90 ERA. Davies has only made 1 start against the Sox, and the threw 5 scoreless innings. I actually like Davies, and think he is underrated, but a lineup like the Sox has to taken advantage of the games when they are not going against "aces".
Starting pitching is not expected to be a problem for the Red Sox (even though it wasn't very good against the Yankees), but their bullpen was shaky against the Yankees. Relievers have walked eight in 12 1/3 innings, and the bullpen allowed all 3 runs Wednesday after six shutout innings from John Lackey. So, hopefully Wake can pitch deep into this game.
The good news is Davies doesn't usually pitch deep into game (lasted beyond six innings only three times in 22 starts in 2009), and the Royal bullpen will be terrible if it's anything like last year's (Royals ranked 29th in bullpen with an ERA 5.02).
Game starts at 8:10pm on NESN.
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