Winning has been easy for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park and has made the Red Sox the number one MLB betting pick.  They have a seven game home stand, a perfect 7-0 sweep.  J. D. Drew and Mike Lowell both had grand slams in Thursday's win at Fenway Park that they won 11-8.  The two grand slams in a game was the 72d time that's happened in the big leagues.  The Red Sox have done it 10 times, more than any other team.  Despite struggling with his control, Daisuke Matsuzaka improved to 8-0 on the season.  Dice-k does walk a lot of batters but usually finds ways to get out of the innings without giving up a lot of hits.  Sox fans can't complain about 8-0 and every game he's pitched they've won.  The oddsmakers at sportsbetting.com currently have the Oakland -140 favorites to Boston heading into this NBA Playoff betting matchup. Friday night.

Dice-K needs to cut down his walks per game, he gives up 6 free passes per game.  If this wasn't the Royals team today he probably would have lost.  If Matsuzaka could cut his walk totals in half he would be the most dominating pitcher in baseball this year.  He tries to be too fine.  At this rate he will burn out at the end of the year.  He is up near 70 to 80 pitches in the 4th and 5th innings a lot of the time, Josh Beckett throws a complete game with that pitch count.  Matsuzaka only runs into trouble with control it seems.  All of his problems are self generated by giving away too many free passes. It happened last year as well.

Well the Red Sox sweep there home stand 7-0 but they have to go on the road for a while on a west coast trip that starts Friday night in Oakland.  It is normally difficult for east coast teams to win a series VS west coast teams on the road, but the Red Sox are red hot right now coming into this weekend series.  What's good for the Red Sox is that 2nd and 3rd place teams in there division will play each other this week in Baltimore and Tampa Bay so they will beat each other up over the weekend.  Sox will send Tim Wakefield to the mound Friday night,  1-1 on the road this season with an ERA of 4.40.  Oakland sends Rich Harden to the hill, 1-0 at home this season with an ERA of 0.82. 

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