Boston Red Sox (53-53) vs. Kansas City Royals (41-64)
The Boston Red Sox are traveling to the Midwest to take on the Kansas City Royals in the opening of a four-game series at Kauffman Stadium. The series starts on Thursday, August 4, and the Red Sox, who are still alive in the postseason race, are looking to return home victoriously.
These American League rivals will meet for the first time this season after facing seven times in 2021. Boston won that series 5-2. The Red Sox are -135 favorites in this one, while the total is set at 8.5 runs.
The Boston Red Sox closed the first half of the season with ten losses in 13 games and added seven more defeats in the opening nine games of the second half. However, they responded with three wins out of the past four, and surprisingly won the series against the Houston Astros on the road. Boston has a lot of injured players at the moment, but it is still in the chase for the wildcard.
The Reds Sox did lose the last game 6-1 to the Astros as their offense couldn’t get it going and scored the lone run in the 9th through Xander Bogaerts’ home run. Rich Hill pitched for just 3.0 innings and allowed four runs on six hits with one strikeout and no walks. Boston is still playing without Trevor Story and Kike Hernandez, while new addition Eric Hosmer and J.D. Martinez are questionable to feature on Thursday.
Nick Pivetta (8-8) will get his 22nd start of the year when he faces the Royals. The 29-year-old right-hander owns a 4.47 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and a 114/44 K/BB ratio across 118.2 innings of work. Pivetta started two times against Kansas City last season and registered a disappointing 8.68 ERA in 9.1 innings.