The Texas Rangers head to Boston to take on the Red Sox over the next three days, and their three young starters get the ball for those three days. Tanner Scheppers (0-0, 15.75 ERA), Martin Perez (0-0, 3.18 ERA) and Robbie Ross (0-0, 3.60 ERA). Between the three of them they have 29 major league starts, and Martin Perez has 27 of those. In comparison, the Red Sox starters that the Texas Rangers will be facing has 690 career Major league starts. Yes, the Texas Rangers are most definitely young this year.
Scheppers will go against John Lackey tonight, a foe that the Texas Rangers are very familiar with because of his time with the Angels. The Rangers have done well against Lackey over the years. John had a very good season for the World Champion Red Sox last year, and I expect him to have a good season again in 2014. I would like to think that Tanner will bounce back from his bad opening day performance and pitch a good game in Boston. I think any improvement would be good for the young starter, I hope he can go 6 innings and give up three runs or less. He needs to pitch like he knows he can instead of trying to be perfect, which is what he did on opening day.
Perez, the most experienced of the three Texas Rangers hurlers, will go against Felix Doubront on Tuesday. Doubront has an ERA of 5.06, but he is also 1-0. I have a lot of faith that Perez will be able to hold down the Red Sox offense which has struggled out of the gate so far in 2014, his stuff is very good. If he can pitch the same as he did for his first game, then the Rangers should be able to beat the Red Sox in this game. I look for Perez to go 6-7 innings and give up 1 run. He should be able to strike out 5-7 batters as well.
Wednesday afternoon, Robbie Ross will be pared up against Jake Peavy, and we all know that Peavy was a great pitcher for the White Sox for many years. I think he still has some good years left in him. Ross had a great first game, giving up only two earned runs (three runs total). I would expect that Ross will be good but not great, I think he will give up 5 runs in 5 innings and strike out 6. The Texas Rangers historically do not do well in day games for some reason, and this is an early start.
I am hoping that the Texas Rangers can come out of Boston with two wins, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them lose two out of three. I really hope that I am wrong and that they sweep the Bo Sox, but then again I hope they sweep everyone for the rest of the season! Enjoy the series everyone!