Series Preview: Guardians at Red Sox

The Guardians at 10-5 arrive in Boston with a +29 run differential to face the 9-7 Red Sox with a run differential of +12.

The Guardians enter the series with a team wRC+ of 113 and a team FIP of 3.64 (4.38 for the starters, 2.78 for relievers) the Red Sox with a team wRC+ of 94 and a team FIP of 3.50 (3.37 for the starters, 3.67 for relievers).

Matchups:
Game 1: Xzavion Curry, RHP (4.50 FIP in 2023) vs. Kutter Crawford, RHP (2.68 FIP) Monday, April 15th at 11:10AM EST.

Analysis: Curry is certainly a gamer and will compete with the best of them but his fastball being about six runs below average for his career and pitching in Fenway is a concern. One thing I’ll be watching with Curry is that his 1.12 Home Run/9 was lower than what he’s done in the minors (1.29 HR/9), and you’d expect that number actually to rise a bit in the majors. Crawford is a tough young pitcher so hopefully there will be a couple Guardians who get a good read on him, maybe your Estevan Florial, Bo Naylor or Andres Gimenez, to go with the usual Josh Naylor and Jose Ramirez performances.

Game 2: Tanner Bibee, RHP (4.93 FIP) vs. Garrett Whitlock, RHP (3.39 FIP) Tuesday, April 16th at 7:10PM EST

Analysis: The Guardians will not get to the promised land this season if Bibee is going to run an FIP around 5. This would be a big game for him to get his control down and give them team some length from the rotation. ZiPS believes in Whitlock and I like him as an under the radar breakout candidate this season. Whitlock has a great slider and so far this season Josh Naylor, Jose Ramirez, Andres Gimenez, Brayan Rocchio, David Fry, Gabriel Arias and Austin Hedges have been above average vs. sliders.

Game 3: Ben Lively, RHP (4.37 FIP in 2023) vs. Tanner Houck, RHP (2.51 FIP) at Wednesday, April 17th at 7:10PM EST

Analysis: No matter what, it will be interesting to begin to see what the Guardians saw in Lively when they made him one of their only two free agent adds this offseason. Houck also relies on a deadly slider so I’d expect to see a similar lineup as for game 2.

Game 4: Carlos Carrasco, RHP (3.88 FIP) vs. Cooper Criswell, RHP (5.25 FIP) at Thursday, April 18th at 1:35PM EST

Analysis: At least on paper, this looks like an important game to steal before the Guardians head out of town. Since 2013, Will Brennan with a 208 wRC+, Austin Hedges with a 153 wRC+, Josh Naylor 146 wRC+, Steven Kwan 132 wRC+, and Jose Ramirez at 128 wRC+ all lead the Guardians in hitting at Fenway. Rafael Devers at 162 wRC+, Triston Casas at 136 wRC+, and Masataka Yoshida at 120 wRC+ have some good career numbers vs. Cleveland.