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Braves to Face Red Sox in a Four Game Split Series

By John Buhler

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The Atlanta Braves take on Interleague rival Boston Red Sox for a four game series, split between Fenway Park and Turner Field.  As bad as yesterday’s loss to the arch rival New York Mets, Atlanta (30-33) is having a better season that last place Boston (27-37).

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Outside of home runs, Atlanta has been a better offensive team than Boston in 2015.  Atlanta scores more runs per game (4.23 to 3.84), hits for a higher average (.258 to .246), and steals more bases (33 to 27) than Boston.  The Red Sox’s position players are costing them nearly two games in the standings (-1.8 WAA) compared to Atlanta’s who are right in the middle of the pack (-0.1 WAA).  Boston lies eight games back of the first place New York Yankees in the American League East.  Only Oakland has a worse winning percentage in the AL than Boston (.422).

The first two games of this four game series will be in Boston at historic Fenway Park.  Tonight’s starters are Williams Perez (2-0, 2.70 ERA) for the Braves and Rick Porcello (4-6, 5.26 ERA) for the Red Sox.  Outside of his abysmal major league debut on May 8th (0.1 IP, 4 ER, 2 H, 2 BB), Perez has pitched great for the Braves in his last seven appearances with a 1.64 ERA.  He even earned a save against the Mets in Saturday afternoon’s extra innings game.  If he can limit his walks and get that fantastic tilt on his breaking ball, William Perez could lead the Braves to victory tonight.

Tomorrow afternoon’s starters are Julio Teheran (4-2, 4.78 ERA) for Atlanta and Wade Miley (5-6, 5.07 ERA) for Boston.  Teheran has not factored into the decision in each of his last three starts despite going at least six innings in each game.  He has been able to bring his ERA down ever so slightly since that horrid outing in Dodgers Stadium during the West Coast road trip (4.91 to 4.78).  The Braves offense might need to pick up Julio as he has allowed at 3 ER in his last four starts for Atlanta.

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    • The Braves and Red Sox will leave New England and come to the Peach State for the final two games at the Ted.  Alex Wood (4-4, 3.56 ERA) takes on Joe Kelly (2-4, 5.45 ERA).  Wood needs to improve on his last two starts, both defeats and not able to last longer than 6.1 innings.  Alex is pitching to too much contact as opponents are hitting .293 against him this season.

    In the series finale Thursday night, Shelby Miller (5-2, 2.02 ERA) faces off with Clay Buchholz (3-6, 4.22 ERA).  Miller never gets any run support in his starts.  Until it’s different, he has not won a game for the Braves since nearly no-hitting the Miami Marlins down in South Beach.  He should have way more than 5 wins on the season by now.  Though Clay Buccholz has the best ERA of any of the Sox’s starters Atlanta will face these next four days, score some runs for Shelby, Braves.  You have to treat your ace better than this.  He has a 2.02 ERA, that’s Greg Maddux like!

    After dropping two of three at Citi Field to the Mets, the best medicine for the Braves is to take three of four from the Red Sox.  Split the games in Fenway and take both back at the Ted.  If the Braves end up sweeping this series, Fredi Gonzalez’s team will be above .500.  Make it happen, boys.  Go Braves!

    Next: Is Cameron Maybin The Braves MVP?

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