Series Preview: Boston Red Sox (48-48) @ Texas Rangers (56-38)

Home, sweet home. For the Rangers, it has not been a very good road trip coming off of the All-Star break, and it may not get any easier. Roy Oswalt was scratched from his start tonight and Colby Lewis is questionable for tomorrow’s start. I was just going to say that Texas’s biggest addition come the second half will be getting healthy, but it seems like they can’t even get that right.

Josh Hamilton was sort of called out by manager Ron Washington, and we will see if Hamilton’s pride takes a hit and he does finally stop swinging at anything he can get a bat on, and some pitches that he can’t.

Series at a Glance

Texas Record: 56-38 (1st AL West)
Boston Record: 48-48 (5th AL West, 9.5 GB)

Season Series: 2-0 Texas
Record at Texas: 0-0

Notable Transactions: July 31, 2007: The Texas Rangers traded Eric Gagne and cash to the Boston Red Sox for Engel Beltre, Kason Gabbard and David Murphy.

Probable Starters:

Monday 7:05 CDT TEX: RHP Scott Feldman (3-6, 5.89 ERA/4.47 FIP) – BOS: LHP Felix Doubront (10-4, 4.24 ERA/4.27 FIP)

Tuesday 7:05 CDT TEX: RHP Colby Lewis (6-6, 3.43 ERA/3.85 FIP) – BOS: RHP Clay Buchholz (8-3, 5.19 ERA/4.91 FIP)

Wednesday 7:05 CDT TEX: LHP Derek Holland (6-5, 4.84 ERA/4.61 FIP) – BOS: RHP Josh Beckett (5-8, 4.53 ERA/3.52 FIP)

Projected Red Sox Lineup

1 CF Jacoby Ellsbury (L)
2 LF Carl Crawford (L)
3 2B Dustin Pedroia
4 1B Adrian Gonzalez (L)
5 RF Cody Ross
6 C Jarrod Saltalamacchia (B) vs RHP
7 3B Will Middlebrooks
8 DH Daniel Nava (B)
9 SS Mike Aviles

Bench
C Kelly Shoppach vs LHP
IF Pedro Ciriaco
IF Nick Punto (B)
OF Ryan Sweeney (L)

Bullpen
CL RHP Alfredo Aceves
SU RHP Vicente Padilla
SU RHP Mark Melancon
MID LHP Franklin Morales
MID RHP Matt Albers
MID LHP Andrew Miller
LR RHP Junichi Tazawa

(source MLBDepthCharts)

For more information on the Red Sox see FanSided’s Red Sox page, BoSox Injection.