Red Sox Vs. Royals Lineups: Boston Aiming For Third Straight Win

The Boston Red Sox did their job setting the tone in Monday night’s series opener against the Kansas City Royals, but with two left to play before concluding the six-game road trip, the job is far from done.

Boston and Kansas City find themselves in a back-and-forth battle for the third and final wild card spot in the American League, and neither team has given in. The Red Sox have scored seven-plus runs in three of four games to begin the road trip, including nine — off 18 hits — during the series opener against the Royals. Racking up wins, especially throughout the second half of the season, hasn’t been easy for the Red Sox who’ve gone 7-9 since the MLB All-Star break — yet to record a sweep amid the stretch.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora elected to run with a copied-and-pasted lineup for the second of three in Kansas City, again giving rookies Nick Sogard and David Hamilton the start as Boston’s middle infield. Sogard’s recorded at least a hit in each of the 26-year-old’s three big-league appearances logged so far, most recently going 2-for-5 against the Royals to mark his first-ever multi-hit performance with Boston.

Tyler O’Neill’s illness will keep the 29-year-old absent for a fourth consecutive game. Cora, again, readjusted the outfield by sliding Jarren Duran in left field and Ceddanne Rafaela in center field to fill the void of O’Neill’s nonappearance.

First pitch from Kauffman Stadium is scheduled for 8:05 p.m. ET, and you can watch the live action, plus a full hour of pregame coverage, live on NESN.

Here are the starting lineups for Boston and Kansas City:

BOSTON RED SOX (60-51)
Jarren Duran, LF
Wilyer Abreu, RF
Masataka Yoshida, DH
Rafael Devers, 3B
Connor Wong, C
Dominic Smith, 1B
Nick Sogard, 2B
David Hamilton, SS
Ceddanne Rafaela, CF

Brayan Bello, RHP (10-5, 5.13 ERA)

KANSAS CITY ROYALS (63-51)
Michael Massey, 2B
Bobby Witt Jr., SS
Vinnie Pasquantino, 1B
Salvador Perez, C
MJ Melendez, LF
Hunter Renfroe, DH
Adam Frazier, RF
Maikel Garcia, 3B
Kyle Isbel, CF

Seth Lugo, RHP (13-5, 2.57 ERA)