Series preview: Sox @ Devil Rays

Boston Red Sox (62-40) @ Tampa Bay Devil Rays (38-63)
3 game series Tropicana Field

Probable Pitching Matchups:
GM1 Fri 705 Wakefield (11-9, 4.74) vs Hammel (1-0, 5.82)
Wake is 16-2 vs. TB lifetime. Hammell is making his 2nd start of the season. Nuff said. MY PICK: Sox roll

GM2 Sat 705 Lester (1-0, 3.00) vs. Shields (8-6, 4.44)
Lester is coming off his first win in a year, shields gave up 10 runs in 3 1/3 vs,. the Stanks on Sunday. Nuff said II. MY PICK: Sox roll

GM3 Sun 205 Matsuzaka (12-7, 3.79) vs. Kazmir (7-7, 4.02)
The series finale boasts the best pitching matchup, but with Kazmir still figuring out how to be an ace, Dice should have no problem notching lucky win #13. MY PICK: Sox sweep

Season series: Sox lead 3-0

Keep an eye on: 1B Carlos Pena .283/24HR/65RBI--the Massachusetts native was a member of the Red Sox for a few minutes (18 games), last season, and although he didn't produce like the Sox had hoped, he has been better than expected for Tampa Bay.

Preview:
The Sox make the first trip of the season to the Tampa Bay area, a.k.a. my adopted hometown, for a three game series at the airplane hangar in downtown St. Pete known as Tropicana Field.

The fact that this is just the second meeting of the season for these two division rivals says all you need to know about how fucked up the schedule is this year. How the hell a team can make two West Coast trips before making even one trip down the East coast to play a division opponent is beyond me.

The two clubs come into this series heading in exact opposite directions. The Sox are coming off a 3-1 series win over the AL Central contending Indians and have won 6 of 7 while scoring 50 runs during the stretch, while the Rays have been getting hammered like scrap metal, losers of six in a row including a three game sweep and back-to-back embarrassments in the Bronx.

Tampa Bay lost the final two games of that four gamer in new York by a combined score of 38-9, and the struggling club is a miserable 5-23 in its last 28 ballgames.

Not really a great time for the Sox to come to town.

Although the Rays have had success against the Sox at the Trop, winning 8 of their last 11 contests in the antiseptic air of the dome, Boston ripped the Rays in a three game series earlier this month, outscoring them 26-10 in a three game sweep.

No reason to expect anything different here, especially looking at the pitching matchups; the finale should be the best pairing of the series , and lucky for me I will be sitting a few rows from the Sox dugout to check that one out firsthand and watch Dice-K and the Sox complete another sweep.

BTW, did I mention the Rays have one of the worst bullpens in the history of baseball?

Go Sox!