New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox Pick 7/26/19

New York Yankees (66-36) at Boston Red Sox (57-47)
When: 7 p.m., Friday, June 26
Where: Fenway Park, Boston

Moneyline: NYY -130 / BOS +120 (Bookmaker)
Runline: Yankees -1.5/Red Sox +1.5
Total: 11.5

Starting Pitchers: James Paxton (5-5, 4.20 ERA, 1.47 WHIP) vs. Andrew Cashner (0-2, 7.36 ERA, 1.64 WHIP)

Historic Explosion

If you were surprised by what the Red Sox did to the Yankees on Thursday, you weren’t alone. Boston unloaded on New York for the biggest rout in the Red Sox’s history against their rivals. Nineteen runs simply doesn’t happen in this battle, as these teams are far too even most times for such a rout to even be possible. But the Red Sox just battered the Yankees on Thursday, as Masahiro Tanaka’s 12 earned runs set a new record for the most ever given up to the Red Sox by a Yankees pitcher.

It’s the kind of performance that Boston is going to need in order to win this series and gain some badly needed ground on the Yankees. If New York gets out of Boston with its double-digit lead intact, the race is probably over.

New Faces, Old Struggles

Going to a different club in your division isn’t something that happens often. But that’s exactly what Andrew Cashner has faced, as he was swapped from Baltimore to Boston earlier this month, leading to him making his first two starts against Toronto and his former club, the Orioles.

Switching to a better team didn’t yield better results, however. In fact, Cashner has actually done much worse in Boston than he did with Baltimore, despite playing for a playoff contender. In his first start, he allowed two home runs and five earned runs to the same Toronto team he had just beaten by holding to three hits in the entire contest. Facing his old team in his second start yielded no better results, as Cashner gave up another two homers and four earned runs in the process.

If the Red Sox are going to be able to close in on this deficit, Cashner has got to start pitching like a quality option on the mound. Giving up more home runs in two starts than he did in the past six weeks certainly isn’t the way to get started on that.

Losses Piling Up

But while Cashner’s been struggling, the road hasn’t been kind to James Paxton either. Truthfully, his starts weren’t bad against Tampa Bay or the Mets, giving up no more than two earned runs in either outing. But what he hasn’t seen is wins. He hasn’t been the one taking all of those defeats with two no-decisions in the past four outings. But the reality is that the Yankees have now dropped four in a row with him on the hill. Plain and simple, his walks have to decrease if he’s going to start to see some victories. In all but two of his past ten starts, at least two batters have reached the easy way.

The Historicals

For as badly as the Red Sox hammered the Yankees on Thursday, the simple fact is that it’s only one game and the Yankees have dominated the series in 2019. New York leads the season series 6-2 over its ancient rival, although Boston has held the upper hand in the rivalry for the past 15 years. During that stretch, the Red Sox have four World Series titles to their name, while the Yankees have managed just one.

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Betting Trends

• The Yankees are 9-1 during the past 10 Game 2’s in a series.
• The Yankees are 6-1 in Paxton’s past seven starts on 4
• The Red Sox have won four of their previous five Friday games.
• The over is 6-0 in the Yankees’ past six games.
• The over is 4-0 in the teams’ past four meetings.
• The over is 6-1 in the Red Sox’s past seven games against a team with a winning percentage above .600.

Weather Report

At 68 degrees at first pitch, this weather will feel perfect at first pitch in Massachusetts.

Dan’s pick

This game is simply not a great matchup of pitchers, and it’s made worse by the fact that neither pitcher arrives in top form. Normally, I would expect Boston to come out on top because the Red Sox are by far the more desperate team, but I don’t know if that’s going to be enough in this game. The Yankees will be anxious to put the previous match behind them and show that they’re a lot better than the 19-3 blowout loss of Thursday.

Take the kind of firepower the Yankees have and the fact that the Red Sox are sending out a pitcher who was shelled by Toronto and Baltimore, and you’ve got the recipe for a bounce-back game on your hands. The Yankees might have been crushed at Fenway, but this pitching matchup gives me a very slight edge even after that brutal performance. It’s a bit unorthodox, but give me the Yankees to get a win after giving up 19 runs the day before.