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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Rays @ BoSox: Game 1 lineup explained

Posted Aug 16, 2011 by Roger Mooney

Updated Aug 16, 2011 at 12:29 PM

ROGER MOONEY
BOSTON DH Johnny Damon is not playing the first game of today’s day/night doubleheader because Joe Maddon wants him to play only one game and picked the night game.

Damon is a career .296 hitter against Game 1 starter Jon Lester, a lefty.

He’s hitting .200 against Erik Bedard, the Game 2 starter, but did manage a hit off Bedard when he faced him a few weeks ago when Bedard was pitching for the Mariners. In fact, that was the last hit Bedard allowed as a Mariner.

Ben Zobrist is the DH, a move Maddon said keeps Zobrist off his feet for one game so he can also play tonight.

With Zoby out of the outfield mix for Game 1, Maddon had to pick one lefty to face Lester and he went with Fuld, who is slightly better this season against lefties (a .209 average) than Matt Joyce (.197). Joyce, though, has three home runs and eight RBIs against lefties.

Maddon said he isn’t sure if Joyce will play Game 2 against the left-handed Bedard.

Rain is in the forecast, expected to be heavy at times, and has been falling on an off all morning.

Here are the lineups:

RAYS
Jennings LF
Fuld RF
Longoria 3B
Zobrist DH
Upton CF
Kotchman 1B
Rodriguez 2B
Shoppach C
Johnson SS
—
Shields (11-9, 2.80)

RED SOXEllsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Gonzalez 1B
Youkilis 3B
Ortiz DH
Crawford LF
Saltalamacchia C
Reddick RF
Aviles SS
—
Lester LHP (11-6, 3.32)