Late Morning Red Sox Delight – 5/28

After a walk on the wild side last night, the Boston Red Sox will look to salvage a split in their 4-game series with the Minnesota Twins.

The game this afternoon will start at 1:10 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.

The former commander of the KickA$$ Brigade Josh Beckett looks to stage a coup and regain his commander status this afternoon in his 100th start for the Red Sox. On the season, Beckett is 4-2 with a 5.01 ERA and is coming off a strong outing against the New York Mets that saw him give up 1 unearned run in 8 innings. Beckett has never faced the Twins at the Metrodome and is 2-1 with a 4.74 ERA in three career starts.

The Twins will look to rookie Anthony Swarzak to help take 3-of-4 from the Red Sox. Swarzak has made just one career big league start. In that start, he went seven scoreless innings against the Milwaukee Brewers to pick up the win.

Francona sheds no tears for Metrodome [Extra Bases]

Globe 10.0: How are the Red Sox in first place? [Extra Bases]

Bay gets a day [Projo Sox Blog]

Baldelli still dealing with hamstring issues, likely related to his condition [Projo Sox Blog]

What to do when Smoltz is Ready!!!! [Lou Merloni – CSN New England]

Braves GM mum on Francoeur-to-Sox rumors [NESN.com]

Struggling Lester raising some flags [NESN.com]

Ever-frustrating Dice-K taking it to new level [Tom Caron – NESN.com]

Here are the lineups for this afternoon’s game:

And here how the hitters have fared against this afternoon’s starting pitchers. No one on the Red Sox has faced Swarzak.