Game #114 Preview: Porcello vs Borucki

The Blue Jays look to avoid the sweep at the hands of the Red Sox in the finale of their 3 game series. Tonight’s game gets underway at 7:07 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Ryan Borucki looks to continue the great start to his career that he has growing. This will be his 8th start, and after finally getting his first win in his last start, he is 1-2 with a 2.30 ERA. He has had an impressive run, having not allowed a home run yet in his 43 innings, but eventually that is going to end. He has a 2.52 FIP, since the home run portion of that equation comes back as 0. However, his xFIP is a less pretty 4.28, but there is some skill in not allowing home runs. Just not quite to the level that he has, and he will eventually start allowing them, quite likely even today.

Borucki faced the Red Sox in his 4th start this season, and it was easily his worst start. He struggled with the strike zone, walking 4 batters over his 3+ innings. His defense didn’t help him out either, as only 4 of the 7 runs scored were earned, and the Jays committed 4 errors in total on the day. But the Jays still pulled out the win in that one, as the offense went to town off Rick Porcello and the Red Sox bullpen winning 13-7.

Red Sox Starter

In a repeat of that July 13th matchup, Rick Porcello gets the start for the Red Sox. He’s having a solid season, going 14-4 with a 3.84 ERA. That record is obviously more of an indication of the team he plays for than his own personal level of skill, but he’s doing a good job pitching deep (over 6 innings per start) and buying steak for his teammates (a Major League leading 6.09 runs per game of support).

This will be Porcello’s 4th start against the Jays this season. The aforementioned start where he allowed 8 runs over 2 innings, plus a pair of starts earlier in the year where he allowed a total of 6 runs (5 earned) over 13.2 innings, surrendering just 8 hits, walking 5 and striking out 14.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

Finally with a righty on the mound, Curtis Granderson can expect to be in the game. Perhaps they’ll give Pillar a day off, as they ease his workload a bit after coming back from injury and then having another catch into the wall last night.

Russell Martin seems likely to catch this one, so long as his knee is still holding up.

I’d like to see Richard Urena get a start, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen.

Red Sox Lineup

Steve Pearce is likely to return to the starting lineup for the Red Sox today with Borucki on the mound.

Dan Butler hasn’t started a game since coming up when Christian Vazquez went down, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Red Sox continue to abuse Sandy Leon and keep sending him out there to catch.

Otherwise it’ll likely be the same guys we have seen the rest of the series. Rafael Devers returned from the DL prior to yesterday’s game, and Brock Holt will be riding the pine again today.

Yesterday’s Heroes

Mike Zunino went 2-3 with a pair of homers and a walk to earn our Monster Bat award. His efforts weren’t enough though as the Rangers took the win 11-7 over the Mariners.

Heath Fillmyer, making his 5th career start, earned his first win by throwing 7 shutout innings, striking out 3 and allowing 3 hits and 2 walks. He was worth .420 WPA in the Royals 9-0 win over the Cubs, which gives him our WPA King title. But it wasn’t quite enough for Pitcher of the Day, as that award goes to...

Patrick Corbin, who threw 7.1 shutout innings, allowing 4 hits, but not walking any and striking out 9. He was the winner in the Diamondbacks 6-0 win over the Phillies.

Find the Link

Find the link between Porcello and Scott Baker.