The Boston Red Sox will take on the Kansas City Royals for their third of a four-game series that sits even at one win apiece through two games at Kauffman Stadium.
Nathan Eovaldi will take the mound for the Red Sox coming off a fantastic start against the Houston Astros. The right-hander allowed two runs (zero earned) with four hits allowed, six strikeouts, and a pair of walks in 6 2/3 innings. He'll look to build off of one of his best starts of the season against a much weaker lineup on Saturday.
The Red Sox will oppose Daniel Lynch, whose underlying metrics are even worse than his middling game-level stats. The southpaw gives up an average exit velocity of 91 mph and a hard hit rate of 45.7%. He's one of the easiest pitchers to square up in the majors.
Supporters of both teams will be disappointed to see Eric Hosmer out of the lineup for the rare Saturday night showdown. In his place will be Bobby Dalbec, batting seventh. It appears early on that manager Alex Cora plans to use a platoon between Hosmer and Dalbec. We'll see how long that lasts considering Hosmer hits .320 with a .772 OPS against left-handed pitching while Dalbec hits just .225 with a .728 OPS.
Jaylin Davis will get the nod over Jarren Duran in center field, batting ninth, in seemingly another budding platoon, at least for the time being. Kevin Plawecki will bat ninth in place of Reese McGuire as Eovaldi has much better numbers with Plawecki behind the dish -- 3.96 ERA with Plawecki versus 4.44 without -- than anyone else.
You can watch Saturday night's game with NESN 360. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET after an hour of pregame coverage on NESN.
Check out the full Red Sox-Royals lineups below.
BOSTON RED SOX (54-54)
Tommy Pham, LF
Rafael Devers, 3B
Xander Bogaerts, SS
Alex Verdugo, RF
J.D. Martinez, DH
Christian Arroyo, 2B
Bobby Dalbec, 1B
Jaylin Davis, CF
Kevin Plawecki, C
Nathan Eovaldi, RHP (5-3, 4.11 ERA)
KANSAS CITY ROYALS (42-65)
MJ Melendez, LF
Bobby Witt Jr., SS
Salvador Pérez, C
Vinnie Pasquantino, DH
Hunter Dozier, 3B
Nick Pratto, 1B
Michael A. Taylor, CF
Kyle Isbel, RF
Nicky Lopez, 2B
Daniel Lynch, LHP (4-7, 4.70 ERA)
