MLB Predictions – Boston and Toronto Tee Off in Slugfest Tonight

Our Tuesday night MLB predictions take us to historic Fenway Park where the division rival Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox will partake in the second game of their scheduled three-game series.

Boston remained perfect against the Blue Jays last night after battling back from a 4-2 deficit early on to win by a 7-6 final count; the Red Sox are now 4-0 against their division rivals in 2010 play.

Though John Lackey’s performance was hardly dominant, he battled through six innings to secure his fourth win of the season. The victory improved the BoSox to a game over .500 at home (11-10, -$265), while the Blue Jays lost for just the fifth time as a visitor this season (12-5, +$1093).

Toronto Blue Jays (19-15, +$742) vs. Boston Red Sox (17-16, -$502)

Game Date/Time: Tuesday, May 11th, 7:10 ET
Game Location: Fenway Park, Boston, MA
TV Broadcast: SNET, NESN, XM Radio

MLB Baseball Odds:

Toronto Blue Jays +1’ -140 +140
(Dana Eveland– L)
Boston Red Sox -1’ +120 -160
(Daisuke Matsuzaka– R)
Total: 10.5 O -115 10.5 U -105

MLB Baseball Insider Tip: Lefty Dana Eveland was very happy to run up against a White sox outfit he dominated earlier in the season in his last start. After struggling in his previous two starts, Eveland once again dominated the Palehose weak hitting offense last Thursday night.

He shut Chicago out through seven innings of work and allowed just a pair of hits while K’ing three. He did walk four for the first time this season, but none of them came back to haunt him. The victory improved his 2010 MLB record to 3-1 on the year, and Toronto has won four of his six overall starts.

He’s had his fair share of headaches against tonight’s opponent however, as Boston has lit him up in his four career starts. He’s failed to get through five innings and allowed no fewer than four ER’s in any of those starts.

Daisuke Matsuzaka has just a pair of starts under his belt this season, and both outings turned into slugfests.

The righty enters his third start of the season 1-1 with a lofty 9.90 ERA & 1.80 WHIP allowing 12 hits and 11 ER’s with a K/BB ratio of 7/6 through 10 IP.

The big inning has plagued him thus far giving up six runs and four runs in a single inning of both starts. He has however tamed the Blue Jays bats throughout his career going 4-1 with a 3.86 ERA & 1.20 WHIP in seven career starts; Boston’s 6-1 and the over’s 4-3 in those outings.

MLB Insider Tip: The over is 5-2 the L/7 overall meetings between these clubs and a perfect 4-0 the L/4 times they went at it in Fenway.

Eveland seemed to right his sinking ship against Chicago, but I’m not buying it. Boston’s already lit him up for seven runs and eight hits in Toronto just a couple weeks ago, and he’s never once had a quality outing against them in his career.

Dice-K has been decent overall, but has been but by the one big inning.

Dan Iassogna has called strikes at a less than 62 percent clip this season, which means these hurlers will have to throw it over the meat of the plate to get the calls. That’s not good considering how well both clubs are swinging the sticks right now.

My MLB predictions for the second game of this series have this one sailing over the ‘total.’

My MLB Prediction: Toronto/Boston Over (Eveland/Matsuzaka)