Detroit Tigers at Boston Red Sox Game 97 Preview, TV, Lineup

Detroit Tigers (47-49) at Boson Red Sox (43-54) — 4:05 PM ET

Fenway Park — Boston, MA

TV: FSD

Radio: 97.1 The Ticket (click for affiliates)

Weather:  69 degrees, mostly cloudy

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When We Last Met

The Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox first matchup in over a year on Friday was a good one. It took 11 innings to decide a victor, but unfortunately, Detroit fell for the second straight day in extra innings, this time, 2-1.

The victory snapped an eight-game losing streak for Boston. Right-hander Justin Verlander pitched his best game of the season, allowing just one run over eight innings, but the Tigers wasted great starting pitching for a second consecutive day. Detroit’s offense has gone cold again, scoring just one run in the last 25 innings.

Pitching Matchup

The smart money tells fans that their will be a lot of offense in Saturday’s game, but the same could have been said for Friday’s game that ended, 2-1. Perhaps that means right-hander Alfredo Simon could also surprise us like Justin Verlander did.

Simon was a little bit better in his last outing, but he still allowing four runs on six hits in 5 2/3 innings. In his five starts prior to that, he yielded at least five runs in all of them.

Overall, Simon is 8-6 with a 4.63 ERA, 1.48 WHIP and 78 strikeouts in 105 innings this season.

Hopefully the Tigers can provide Simon some run support against right-hander Steven Wright, who will start for the Red Sox. He is 3-3 with a 4.84 ERA, 1.30 WHIP and 27 strikeouts in 48 1/3 innings.

The Los Angeles Angels completely lit up Wright for six runs on six hits, including two home runs in five innings in his last outing. Detroit needs a similar offensive performance.

Detroit Tigers Lineup

1. Rajai Davis CF
2. Ian Kinsler 2B
3. Yoenis Cespedes LF
4. Victor Martinez DH
5. J.D. Martinez RF
6. Nick Castellanos 3B
7. Alex Avila 1B
8. James McCann C
9. Jose Iglesias

Injuries

• Miguel Cabrera — 15-day DL
• Kyle Lobstein — 15-day DL
• Joe Nathan – Out for the Season

Next: Detroit Tigers Flavor Accents 2015 Hall of Fame Weekend