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It’s a potential American League playoff preview on Wednesday night when the Boston Red Sox visit the Chicago White Sox, with the Pale Hose favored on the MLB odds behind Cy Young contender Lucas Giolito. However, Chicago will be without maybe its best hitter.

How to Bet Red Sox at White Sox MLB Odds & TV Info

When: Wednesday, 8:10 PM ET
Where: Guaranteed Rate Field
Probable pitchers (away/home): Rich Hill/Lucas Giolito
TV: MLB Extra Innings
Stream/gameday audio: https://www.mlb.com/live-stream-games/
Opening MLB Lines: White Sox -165, Red Sox +155 (total 8)

Why Bet on Boston?

The Red Sox are the only MLB team with 3 players batting .300+ with an .800+ OPS: Xander Bogaerts (.325, .842), Rafael Devers (.335, .959), and JD Martinez (.349, .971). The Red Sox lead the majors this month in SLG (.453) and lead the AL in AVG (.267) and OPS (.784) and rank 2nd in OBP (.331).

It’s veteran lefty Rich Hill, at 42 the second-oldest player in the majors right now (Albert Pujols) on the mound for Boston. Hill (1-1) was torched for four runs over two innings last Thursday in a no-decision against the Mariners. Hill served up six hits in the abbreviated outing, including a two-run homer to Dylan Moore in the second inning. He registered a pair of strikeouts and only issued one walk. The rough outing snapped a streak of four consecutive strong outings for the veteran southpaw since April 24. He brings a 3.90 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and 23/8 K/BB ratio across 30 innings (seven starts) into Wednesday.

The Red Sox believe Hill was tipping his pitches during the Mariners start: “We’re looking. We always look,” manager Alex Cora said. “It doesn’t mean that if you get hit, you’re tipping. But there’s a few things we saw that we have to correct. Probably, he was doing it before when he was being successful. Just a few things that we noticed and we just have got to make adjustments.”

As always with Hill, it’s all about the fastball command and making people respect that pitch before dropping one of his different curveball angles on hitters. If he’s predictable, he gets hit hard.

Hill has allowed four earned runs or fewer in each of his last 78 MLB starts (beginning 5/13/18), the longest active streak in the majors. He has a 3.32 ERA (146 ER/395.2 IP) during the streak. On May 14 at Texas, Hill became the oldest Red Sox to earn a win since Tim Wakefield (45) in 2011 and the first lefty since David Wells (43) in 2006.

Hill didn’t face the White Sox when they were in Boston earlier this season. Sox starters have allowed 2 runs or fewer in 20 of their last 29 games. In that time, they rank 5th in MLB in WHIP (1.07) and 10th in ERA (3.29).

Why Bet on Chicago?

The Red Sox were swept by the White Sox in their 3-game series at Fenway Park from 5/6-8. Each game was decided by 2 runs or fewer.

Chicago took a big hit before Tuesday’s opener of this series as star outfielder Luis Robert was placed on the COVID list and is expected to miss about a week. Robert is batting .285/.319/.438 (39-137) with three doubles, six home runs, 17 RBI, six stolen bases and 21 runs scored in 33 games this season. He leads the team in homers and ranks second in hits, RBI, runs scored, stolen bases and total bases (60). Jake Burger was called up from Triple-A to take his roster spot.

It’s Lucas Giolito (2-1) on the mound for Chicago. Giolito surrendered two runs on seven hits over five innings while taking a no-decision in last Wednesday’s loss to the Royals. Giolito struck out seven and walked two. A Whit Merrifield RBI single in the third inning and a solo homer by Bobby Witt Jr. in the third inning accounted for the runs to score on his watch. The 27-year-old was making his first start since May 10 due to a brief stint on the COVID-19 injured list and the rust showed, with Giolito tossing only 55 of 92 pitches for strikes with 10 of the swinging variety.

A lack of consistent length has been an issue for the ace right-hander during the spring. It marked the third time in six starts in which Giolito has failed to make it into the sixth inning. He has made it past the sixth just once this season. Giolito is yet to allow more than three runs in a game through six turns, though, and has a solid 2.84 ERA.

Giolito didn’t pitch in Boston earlier this season. He will make his fifth career start vs. Boston and third at Guaranteed Rate Field. He is 0-1 with a 7.00 ERA (14 ER/18.0 IP) lifetime and 0-0 with a 3.18 ERA (4 ER/11.1 IP) at home.

Chicago starters rank among the American League leaders in strikeouts per 9.0 IP (1st, 9.68), strikeouts (2nd, 219), slugging pct. (4th, .362) and homers per 9.0 IP (6th, 0.93).