Series preview: Sox @ Oakland

Oakland A's (25-23)
Sox lead series, 3-1

AL WEST: 2.5GB
STREAK: W1
LAST 10: 3-7
AVG: .250 (10th in AL)
RS: 411 (6th)
HRs: 32 (11)
ERA: 3.37 (1)
RA: 178 (12)
SV: 11 (10)

3 Game series @ Network Assoc. Coliseum
Game 1 Friday 10:05
Wakefield (3-2, 4.33; 9-5, 4.03 vs. OAK) vs. Harden (2-0, 2.91; 1-1, 7.71 vs. BOS)
Game 2 Saturday 9:05
Beckett (5-3, 4.67; 2-2, 5.55) vs. Duchscherer (3-3, 2.67; 1-0, 2.66)
Game 3 Sunday 4:05
Lester (3-2, 3.41; 1-1, 4.05) vs. Blanton (2-6, 3.87; 2-2, 3.65)

KEY A's:

- LF Jack Cust .254/7HR/17BI/37BB/44K/.426OBP The all or nothing swinger might not have many hits this season (33), but he leads the As in homers and he's 1st in the AL in walks and 2nd in on base percentage

- RF Emil Brown .260/5HR/35BI/8 2B/26R surprising that on a team with mashers like Cust and Frank Thomas the unassuming Brown would be leading the A's in ribbies; more surprising, his total is good for 5th in the league

-Frank Thomas .282/3HR/14BI/.394OBP since the teams last met Thomas has switched from the Jays to the A's. Not a good thing for Boston, because he clubbed 2 homers, a double and had 8 RBIs against the Sox for Toronto earlier this season

Ex-Sox:

-Keith Foulke 0-0, 1SV, 4H, 3.18ERA in 11.1IP the burger king is still kicking around the league, and after a stint on the DL he has actually pitched pretty effectively (2H, 0R in 3.1IP) in his last 3 appearances

-Lenny DiNardo 1-1, 10.57ERA, 2.61WHIP the affable, dependable member of the 04 championship team was just recalled from the minors Wednesday, and with his bloated numbers you can see why he was sent down

-Alan Embree 1-2, 4.22ERA, 8H, 1.07WHIP Timlin's former running mate must have a bet with him on who can last longer in the league before their arm falls off

PREVIEW:
It's deja vu all over again as the Sox return to the park where they played thier first game of the season on American soil to play the opponenet they opened the year with over in Japan.

Only instead of dealing with jet lag and language barriers the boys from Boston are toting a seven game winning streak into the Mauseleum for their second meeting of the season with the slumping As.

When the teams last met Boston split the first two games of the openeing set in Japan, then after flying to Cali and playing a pair of exhibition games against the Dodgers, the Sox won the final two American games of the series by a combined score of 7-1.

As they meet again tonight Boston is officially the best team in baseball, sporting a .620 winning percentage to go along with its longest winning streak since June/July of 2006, while the A's, after a surprising start to the season have started to fall back to Earth, losing 7 of their last 9 games before bludgeoning the Rays 9-1 on Wednesday.

As we in the Nation know Boston has a long and storied relationship with Oakland. From the playoff series of the late 80, when Dave Stew always got the best of Roidger, to last season's near no-no by Curt Schilling and this season's goodwill trip to the Far East, these clubs are no strangers to playing series against each other both meaningful and meaningless.

That's why the Sox can't afford to think they will come out to this place and take these three games, despite the fact that their offesne is rolling and Oakland is stumbling.

One reason being that Oakland's strength is its pitching, as evidenced by its league-leading ERA.

Led by the surprsing Dana Eveland, whose 2.90 ERA is 7th in the league, and a slew of quality relievers, the amazing thing about this staff is that no regualr has an ERA over 4.50. In this day and age that is a truly amazing stat.

In the opener of this series Boston will face the oft-injured, enigmatic young righty Rich Harden. Although he did pick up Oakland's only win of the season-opening series when he allowed 3 hits and a run in 6 innings of work, he immediatley went on the DL shortly thereafter and spent a month there before returning two weeks ago.

Since his return Harden has had one horrible outing (8H, 5ER in 3.2IP) and one decent one, allowing just 4 hits and a run in 7 innings in a win against Atlanta last weekend.

If Oakland hopes to have any chance of winning this series, it needs Harden to pitch like that tonight.

Boston will counter with Tim Wakefield in the opener, and as usual with the knuckleballer, you never know what you're gonna get.

In his last 2 starts Wake has been awful, surrendering 13 hits and 9 earned runs in 8 innings of work, so you would have to say the pitching advantage definitely rests with Oakland tonight.

No matter how it goes it should be an interesting series out there. Plenty of old faces on the field, plenty of Red Sox Nation memberes representing in the stands, and hopefully a continuaation of the Sox winning ways will be on the menu for these late night affairs.

If not it could be a long trip for a team that's a lot happier tasting home cooking.