Evening Red Sox Delight – 5/27

After a rough outing last night, the Boston Red Sox look to regroup tonight in the third game of a 4-game set with the Minnesota Twins. The series stands at 1-1.

The game tonight will start at 8:10 PM EDT and will be televised in the Red Sox television market on NESN. If you live in the Twins television market, you can catch the game on FOX Sports North. And if the television isn’t your cup of tea, you can catch the game on one of the many affiliates of the Red Sox Radio Network.

Daisuke Matsuzaka will make his second start since returning from the disabled list. He was roughed a little in that outing against the New York Mets who scored 4 runs in 5 innings off of him. This is just the 4th start of the season and his record stands at 0-2 with a 10.32 ERA. He has had good success against the Twins, going 2-0 with a 1.61 ERA in 3 starts. In his lone start at the Metrodome, Dice-K allowed 2 runs in 7 innings to pick up a win.

Despite a 4.23 ERA, Kevin Slowey is off to a 6-1 start in 9 games for Ron Gardenhire. He has only faced the Red Sox one time in his career and that was last year at Fenway Park when he was also matched up with Dice-K. He took the loss in that game giving up 4 runs in 5 2/3 innings.

With Matsuzaka on the mound, Kottaras gets a new challenge [Projo Sox Blog]

At 21 games, Ellsbury’s streak becoming impossible to ignore [Projo Sox Blog]

Smoltz sounds as good as he looks, to Francona [Projo Sox Blog]

Terry Francona on Dale and Holley [Full Count]

Francona: ‘A lot went into it’ [Extra Bases]

A few things…. [Extra Bases]

Ortiz impressive again in batting practice [Extra Bases]

Slumping as a DH [Ask 14]

Jacoby is on Fire [Ask 14]

Wednesday Quickie Nuggets [Nuggetpalozza]

Red Sox should be shopping for a shortstop [NESN.com]

5th Inning Strikes Again [Center Field]

Bad karmah for Lestah? [Batter-up with Bruno]

Here are the lineups for this tonight’s game:

And here how the hitters have fared against tonight’s starting pitchers: