The Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals continue their four-game weekend series in Kansas City on Saturday night. The Red Sox are in last place in the AL East but are still very much in the wildcard race in the American League. The Royals are battling the Detroit Tigers at the bottom of the AL Central Division standings in a rebuilding season. The pitching matchup for Saturday will be veteran righty Nathan Eovaldi (5-3, 4.11) of the Red Sox taking on lefty Daniel Lynch (4-7, 4.70) of the Royals. First pitch is scheduled for 810pm EST.
The Red Sox front office treated the trade deadline like the team has much of this season; cautiously operating, not sure if they were in or out. The team held onto veterans that were rumored to be moved like Xander Bogaerts, JD Martinez and tonight's pitcher Nathan Eovaldi. The Sox did move on from veteran catcher Christian Vazquez and dealt struggling left-handed reliever Jake Diekman while adding outfielder Tommy Pham and first baseman Eric Hosmer. With those moves, the jury is still out; are the Red Sox in or out? On Friday night in Kansas City, the Red Sox came back from a tough loss on Thursday night to upend the Royals and push back to .500. Xander Bogaerts and Alex Verdugo each had three hits in the win and starter Josh Winckowski went five innings and allowed five hits and one run to earn the win.
Raffy starts the scoring! pic.twitter.com/2yeQOM5J4z
— Red Sox (@RedSox) August 5, 2022
The Red Sox most glaring weakness was not addressed at the deadline; the lack of starting pitching. Chris Sale is set to begin rehab for his broken finger this week in Florida while Rich Hill returned to the rotation on Thursday and Michael Wacha made a rehab start in the minors on Thursday. The Red Sox brass is confident that the return of the Red Sox staff will give the team a fighting chance down the stretch. On the mound on Saturday will be another player who recently returned from IL, Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi struggled in his return to the staff in July. In his three starts, Eovaldi went 0-1 with an ERA of 11.08. He bounced back in his last start against Houston, throwing 6.2 innings and allowing two unearned runs while striking out six.