Game Preview: Rays @ Sox GM3

Sonnanstine (1-8, 6.35) vs. Matsuzaka (13-8, 3.59)
Fenway Park 105

The Sox have won the first two games of this series, but not due to offensive explosion one might expect from the best team in baseball taking on one of the worst.

Instead Boston has had to scrape out two close victories, a 3-0 win on Monday that was a 1-0 game heading into the 7th inning, and last night's heart-stopping 2-1 thriller.

Sure the Rays had their two best hurlers throwing in those games, but what will the excuse be today when rookie Andy Sonnanstine, he of the horrible record, ERA and batting average against (.301) takes the mound for the finale?

To put it bluntly those wins were nice, and, coupled with the Birds blowout of the Stanks in the Bronx last night, helped Boston push its East lead back to 5 games, but anything less than an offensive explosion today will be cause for concern from every corner of the Nation.

But the way the Sox have been scoring runs for Dice-K lately, or should I say haven't been scoring runs for him, I find it hard to believe that they will all of a sudden put a 10-spot on the board.

After averaging more than 8 runs/start for Matsuzaka for most of the first half of the season, the Sox have only scored less than 4 RPG for him since the break.

And it's not like he hasn't been holding up his end of the deal: in his last 4 starts Dice has allowed just 5 earned runs over 27 1/3 innings for a 1.65 ERA while striking out 28 hitters.

So although on paper this one looks like a monumental mismatch, the figures show that it could be another nailbiter.

For the sanity of the Nation, let's hope the Sox batters break out of their Matsuzaka slump and destroy Sonnanstine and the Rays before the bad news Angels come to town for the weekend.

Is that too much to ask for?