The woeful Boston Red Sox (34-43) are in town for a four-game set this week as the Toronto Blue Jays (41-36) look to keep the pace in the uber-competitive AL East. The Red Sox are the only team in the division that isn’t within a game of first place (they sit eight back) but they’re playing decent baseball of late, with wins in six of their last ten despite being without star second baseman Dustin Pedroia.
Monday, June 29 — 7:07 PM
Clay Buchholz vs. R.A. Dickey
Tuesday, June 30 — 7:07 PM
Eduardo Rodriguez vs. Marco Estrada
Wednesday, July 1 — 1:07 PM
Rick Porcello vs. Mark Buehrle
Thursday, July 2 — 7:07 PM
Wade Miley vs. Matt Boyd
The Blue Jays have fought their way past the 40-win mark almost purely because of their record at Rogers Centre, where the team is 24-15. The team will play 16 of its 25 July games on the road as the Pan Am Games take over the city of Toronto, which makes winning at least three of these four games a priority. If the Blue Jays are going to be ho-hum on the road, they need to bank all the wins they can while at home.
The Blue Jays’ offence has been uncharacteristically impotent of late, failing to score more than three runs in four of their last five games. Of course, the one outlier in that sequence was Friday night’s 12-run outburst against the Texas Rangers, which proved the obvious—the Blue Jays are a dominant offensive threat that can explode on a starting pitcher at any time. Josh Donaldson showed signs of snapping out of his mini-funk against the Rangers and Edwin Encarnacion’s power appears to be returning as he continues to play through injuries, which means the Blue Jays might be primed to put up some large offensive numbers against a porous Red Sox pitching staff.
Marco Estrada takes the bump Tuesday night, coming off back-to-back starts when he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. He’s the first pitcher to do that since Dave Stieb in 1988 and the right-hander is undeniably one of the hottest arms in baseball right now. Expecting another no-hit performance is likely a little much to ask, but if Estrada’s changeup is acting the way it has in his last two starts, look out for a whole lot of swing-and-miss.
Canada Day is always one of the better games to attend, with a lively mid-summer crowd packing the Dome and the Blue Jays wearing their alternate reds. The forecast is looking great at the moment, and with Mother Nature dumping a few thousand millimetres of water on the city this past weekend (approximate estimate), there’s no possible way it can rain anymore, right?! Plus, with Mark Buehrle on the hill taking on Rick Porcello, who’s taken a loss in six of his last seven starts, there’s a very good chance for a Blue Jays victory that will be over with plenty of time to hit the patio.
Matt Boyd will make his second career start in the series finale, looking to build upon a mixed yet promising debut outing where he struck out seven over 6.2 innings, while allowing three home runs. After the start, Boyd and catcher Dioner Navarro indicated they were still getting into a groove with one another and they learned a great deal in Boyd’s first start about which pitches he should and should not throw in certain situations. If Boyd can work out the kinks and string together a few good starts, he could become a fixture in the Blue Jays’ rotation as summer unfolds.
