BOSTON -The Boston Red Sox open up a four-game homestand with the AL-leading Kansas City Royals (73-46) Thursday night.
Kansas City left-hander Danny Duffy (6-5, 4.03 ERA) opposes Red Sox lefty Wade Miley (9-9, 4.58) on the mound in the 7:10 p.m. start at Fenway Park.
The second guy in the Sox lineup that Duffy will face is Pablo Sandoval, who is making a rare appearance in the two-hole. Sandoval, upon hearing the news in the clubhouse that he was batting second, was very surprised. He laughed on the way back to his locker after seeing the lineup card, and jokingly said "No bueno!"
But with Brock Holt getting the day off, Torey Lovullo felt Sandoval in the second spot balanced the lineup.
"As I was sitting down talking about the lineup construction with some of the guys last night, it fit and it worked," Lovullo said. "He's been swinging the bat very, very well. We didn't want to hit him 7th. We want to hit Shaw in the middle of the lineup. I think it just made a lot of sense to put him in that spot. It wasn't like we flipped a coin or anything. We had a lot of conversation about it."
The other lineup note is that Rusney Castillo is out and Jackie Bradley Jr. is in, despite a lefty on the mound for Kansas City. Castillo forgot the outs during last night's game and threw the ball into the stands after the second out, allowing two bases for the runner on first. Though Lovullo was upset by that, it's not the reason Castillo sits tonight.
"Not at all, not at all," Lovullo said. "You guys will be able to see that obviously there's a little bit of a rotation with these guys. I haven't quite figured out anything beyond the next couple of days, but they're all going to play. I've been saying it for the past couple of days: we're a team of 25 guys. Everybody is going to contribute on some level and in this case Rusney was going to get a day off no matter what he did yesterday.
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The full lineups:
ROYALS
Alcides Escobar, SS
Ben Zobrist, 2B
Lorenzo Cain, CF
Eric Hosmer, 1B
Kendrys Morales, DH
Mike Moustakas, 3B
Salvador Perez, C
Alex Rios, RF
Paulo Orlando, LF
Danny Duffy, LHP
RED SOX
Mookie Betts, CF
Pablo Sandoval, 3B
Xader Bogaerts, SS
David Ortiz, DH
Hanley Ramirez, LF
Travis Shaw, 1B
Ryan Hanigan, C
Jackie Bradley Jr., RF
Josh Rutledge, 2B
Wade Miley, LHP
