A’s vs. Red Sox game thread

First of three in Beantown

Good afternoon and happy Tuesday, A’s fans.

After splitting this past weeks home stand 3-3, the A’s used yesterdays day off to travel to the east coast where they’ll begin a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox tonight. Both of these teams met during Opening Week back in the Bay Area resulting in a Red Sox sweep against a lifeless A’s team out of the gate, so now is payback time.

Getting the ball for the A’s will be Joey Estes, and he’ll look to build off a career start this past Wednesday. Estes threw a complete game shutout against the Los Angeles Angels allowing just five hits and one walk dominating from start to finish. Perhaps the most impressive part is he did it in just 92 pitches marking the best start for an A’s arm in a couple of years. Tonight, Estes will make his first ever start against the Red Sox.

Here’s the lineup behind him tonight as written by manager Mark Kotsay:

Starting for the Red Sox is Dominican-born righty Brayan Bello. Bello started against the A’s at the Coliseum in April where he was tagged for four runs and two home runs in five innings of work. That start has encapsulated Bello’s season pretty accurately pitching to a 5.19 ERA but to his credit, he’s coming off of one of his best starts of the season this past Wednesday in Miami.

As a whole, the Red Sox are 49-40 this year and in the thick of the American League Wild Card race. A big reason for that can be credited to a potent offense that’s surprised many.

At the top of the order, you get do-it-all centerfielder Jarren Duran who was just announced to his first career all-star game a few days ago. Then there’s Rafael Devers putting together another elite 2024 season including this past weekend where he singlehandedly torched the New York Yankees. Ceddanne Rafaela, Connor Wong, Masataka Yoshida and more round-up a fun Red Sox lineup that will look like this tonight:

It’s always a good time to see the A’s take their yearly visit to the historic Fenway Park, but it’d be even better to see some wins there too. Here we go A’s!