The New York Yankees (13-9) will travel to Boston on Friday night to face the division-rival Red Sox (12-10) in the first of a three-game series. New York dropped two out of three against Boston back on Apr. 10-12 at Yankee Stadium and hope to get revenge at Fenway Park this time around.
CC Sabathia (0-4 with a 5.96 ERA and 1.364 WHIP) will take the mound for the Yankees on Friday at 7:10 p.m. ET against Justin Masterson (2-0 with a 5.16 ERA and 1.324 WHIP). This will be the fifth start of the season for both of these pitchers as they look to rebound after a poor campaign throughout the month of April.
The Yankees rotation has an ERA of 4.19 (18th in MLB) while the Red Sox possess a dismal 5.75 starter's ERA (last in MLB), and also own the worst cumulative ERA (5.04) in baseball. New York's bullpen has picked up much of the slack and ranks third with a 1.75 ERA (third in MLB), bringing down the team's cumulative total to 3.23 (fifth in MLB).
But the two rank atop the league in offense. The Red Sox, although they have given up more runs than they've scored, rank third in that category (113) and the Yankees are a few spots behind them in sixth with 109 runs scored. The offensive production from both clubs thus far into the 2015 season is likely to give Sabathia and Masterson a bit of trouble.
Sabathia has not had much success against the Red Sox in 29 career starts. He is 11-12 with a 4.68 ERA and 1.317 WHIP (188 1/3 innings), which includes his 5-5 record with a 5.30 ERA and 1.569 WHIP in 14 starts at Fenway Park. These stats do not bode well for Sabathia, who has made only 12 starts since the beginning of the 2014 season because of a knee injury.
On the other hand, Masterson has a much more comforting career track record against the Yankees. The right-hander is 4-5 with a 3.94 ERA and 1.433 WHIP in 13 games (nine starts). He began his career with the Red Sox in 2008, but was traded to the Cleveland Indians in 2009 in the deal that brought Victor Martinez to Boston, so most of his starts against New York came when he was with Cleveland.
These two teams endured at 19-inning game in their first matchup of the 2015 season on Apr. 10. Outfielder Mookie Betts hit a sacrifice fly to score shortstop Xander Bogaerts in the top of the 19th and New York couldn't respond in the bottom half of the inning. The Yanks then proceeded to lose the following day by the score of 8-4.
However, the series finale was arguably the game where the Yankees' offense finally came to life, after which they've continued to sustain that success throughout April. Led by Alex Rodriguez, the Bronx Bombers scored 14 runs in that game, including 10 off of starter Clay Buchholz, and won the matchup 14-4 to avoid the sweep.
Watch for Rodriguez to possibly tie Willie Mays' 660-home run mark as he heads into the game batting .232/.369/.507 with 13 runs scored, five home runs and 13 RBIs.
We'll see how Friday's AL East showdown will set the tone for the weekend.
Check out the live stream for tonight's game here as well as the live radio broadcast here (if you're a Red Sox fan) or here (if you're a Yankees fan).
