BEST LINE: Pinnacle -1 +116

The Red Sox losing streak is now at 10. Over that span they’ve hit .212 while scoring 26 lousy runs. 10 of those runs have occurred in the last two games with five of those coming in one inning on four hits, a hit batter and a walk. To make matters worse, Boston is now without Mike Napoli, which is one of the few offensive threats they had. Clay Buchholz has four dominant starts and four disaster starts in nine games started thus far. However, three of those disaster starts have all come in his last three starts in which he’s allowed 29 hits in 15 innings and failed to make it out of the fifth inning in two of those three. Buchholz has terrible surface stats, as he is 2-4 with a 6.32 ERA and 1.85 WHIP. Buchholz’s 5.77 xERA in May really isn’t much better. He has been a bit unlucky with a 40% hit rate and 68% strand rate but his problems have been much more than bad luck, as his 32% line drive rate over his last five starts will attest to.  

After spending an entire offseason looking for a new home, Ervin Santana finally landed in the National League for the first time in his career. He's taking the NL by storm with a 4-2 record and a 3.42 ERA. Though it's too early to draw firm conclusions, Santana is making gains that are worth noting. Santana made huge strides limiting the walks in 2013 with a career-low and that improvement has carried over into this season. Santana's early strikeout rate spike in 2014 is a nice surprise and it's supported by a 13% swinging strike rate but years of average K’s casts doubt he can keep it up. Santana has a nifty BB/K split of 14/48 in 53 innings and he’s also 3-1 at home with an ERA of 3.14. Pitching matchup aside, Boston is a mentally dejected team that is swinging at everything and hitting nothing. Until they show us some life, we’ll continue to fade them and make no exception here.