How we see it goin' down: Royals - Red Sox series

First Pitch: Friday 7:10, Saturday 7:10, Sunday 1:35, Monday 1:35

Arms: Friday: Bruce Chen, LHP (9-10, 5.45 ERA) vs. Jon Lester, LHP (7-10, 5.03 ERA)

Saturday: Jeremy Guthrie, RHP (2-3, 3.43 ERA) vs. Josh Beckett , RHP (5-11, 5.23 ERA)  

Sunday: Will Smith, LHP (4-5, 5.40 ERA) vs. Felix Doubront, LHP (10-6, 4.70 ERA) 

Monday: Luke Hochevar, RHP (7-11, 4.95 ERA) vs. Clay Buchholz, RHP (11-4, 4.47 ERA)

                                             Yard: Fenway Park   Watch it: NESN   Hear it:  WEEI

The Matchup

Record: 55-68 (3rd AL Central)	Record: 59-66 (4th AL East)
On road: 29-35	At home: 29-37
Streak: Lost 1	Streak: Lost 4
Leaders at the plate	Leaders at the plate
Average: Escobar (.304)	Average: Podsednik (.375)
Homers: Butler (25)	Homers: Ortiz (23)
RBI: Butler (79)	RBI: Gonzalez (86)
Leaders on the mound	Leaders on the mound
Wins: Chen (9)	Wins: Buchholz (11)
ERA: Guthrie (3.23) | Herrera (2.53)	ERA: Morales (3.77) | Tazawa (1.37)
K's: Hochevar (110)	K's: Lester (133)

Last time

The Royals won a 3-game series in KC in early May of this season. The Sox came out firing with an 11-5 victory in game 1. Will Middlebrooks went deep twice accompanied by homers from Pedroia and Ortiz . Bard and Lester blew games 2 and 3 and the Sox fell short by two runs and one run respectively to close out the series.

This time

Laser Show: Scott Podsednik

You can count on at least one hit from Podsednik in almost every series. Even if he does go off along with the entire offense, will it be enough to cover the asses of the starters?

Pitch Around: Billy Butler

Butler has the best bat on the team by far. Butler took Matt Albers deep earlier in the season, but he is gone so we don't have to worry. Wait, we do. He'll probably take someone deep in this series

Don't Fall Behind: Anyone

The Royals do not have a good pitching staff, but it doesn't matter because the Red Sox rotation is worse. If the Red Sox want to regain respect or salvage any respect left from fans, they will take advantage of the Royals.

How we see it goin' down

I never though I would be saying this, but the Royals and Red Sox are pretty much equal in terms of where they stand. With the crap served up by the pitching staff as of late, the Red Sox could score 20 runs per game and it will become a nail biter. The Red Sox will split the 4-game series with the Royals, resulting in that much more criticism on Tuesday.