Yankees vs. Red Sox Preview: Eovaldi takes on Miley

The Yankees have quietly become one of the hottest teams in baseball, winning four straight series and bringing a lot of momentum into Boston (at least, as much momentum as a team that just lost it's ace for a month can have).  This afternoon, New York will send promising youngster Nathan Eovaldi to the mound to take on Wade Miley.  Eovaldi has shown some flashes of the potential the Yankees saw in him when they shipped David Phelps and Martin Prado off to Miami, but he's still trying to find the consistency that will turn him from a hard-throwing young arm with upside into a productive major league regular.  Unfortunately, Eovaldi is coming off his shortest start of the year, as he lasted just 4.1 innings against the Mets in a game the Yankees eventually won 6-4.  Still, Eovaldi has been solid this year as his 3.22 xFIP and his 4.00 K/BB ratio (way up from his 2.20 career average) show, and he also looked good in his first outing against the Red Sox, limiting Boston to just three runs on eight hits in his first start of the season.

Of course, the Red Sox still beat Eovaldi in that game, a game that would end up running for 19 innings.  And guess who started that game for Boston - that's right, Wade Miley.  Miley turned in over five innings of two-run ball to beat the Yankees and Eovaldi on April 10.  Since then, though, Miley has hardly look like a pitcher to fear, as his ERA has climbed to 8.62.  In his last start, he didn't even make it out of the third inning, giving up seven runs (six earned) on five hits to Baltimore en route to an 18-7 shellacking.  Let's hope he looks more like the pitcher the Orioles faced last week than the one the Yankees saw in early April.

Here's today's lineup, and as always, go Yanks!