I don't see many options on the board today, but I do like the advantage the Red Sox have in this one on the mound and on their bench. First of all if we are looking at home/away splits the Red Sox have the biggest advantage I've seen in quite a while scoring more than 2 more runs per 9 vs. RHP and they have a bullpen ERA that's 2.55 lower than Houston and Boston is the road team. Ryan Dempster will make another start on the road on 5 days rest where he carries a decent 3.94 ERA. He will finally face a weak hitting team as the Astros are 25th in OPS vs. RHP.
On the flip side Jared Cosart has been amazing through 4 starts posting a great ERA, but a closer look reveals that he has been lucky with a .214 BABIP and a 86.7% LOB%. He's not even striking out more batters than he's walking which is 3.86 per 9. Cosart throws 75% fastballs and 17% curve balls which make up the majority of his pitches. I Looked at several things here. Where do the Red Sox rank in OPS vs. RHP, their pitch value vs. FB and CB's and they are 1st, 1st, and 2nd. The other 4 opponents that Cosart has faced average rankings was 13th between those three categories. Cosart will have a real challenge facing the Sox tonight.
