The Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles are playing live on the MLB Baseball Season Opener schedule and the game for Opening Day starts at 3 pm from ESPN2 and the WatchESPN website for live streaming and has Jon Lester taking on Chris Tillman at Oriole Park at Camden Yards as the two teams start the 2014 campaign in the AL East.
The Red Sox come into the season as World Series champions after taking down the Cardinals and the Orioles now are one of the established upstarts that expect to make the playoffs each season after breaking through a couple years ago. The team missed the postseason in 2013 after making it the previous year and now names like Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and Tillman have stepped into veteran roles while Manny Machado looks to come back from a major injury. The Orioles added Nelson Cruz and Ubaldo Jimenez in the offseason and they may feel that their window to contend is going to close with each season and now they feel like they have as strong a team as anyone in the division.
The Yankees improved vastly in the offseason and that came after they missed the playoffs and after spending millions on Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran, Masahiro Tanaka and Jacoby Ellsbury, they will have a target on them along with the Red Sox. Lester comes in as the starter for the red Sox and he has gone 15-3 in his career against the Orioles and he is starting on the Opening Day game for the fourth straight season and he is coming off of a very solid year with a 15-8 record and he was an integral part of the World Series win. Lester won the opener last season against the Yankees and now he will try and do the same on the road against the Orioles.
The Red Sox will have their own home opener later on this week and the team comes in with a few stars gone from last season's team, as Ellsbury signed with the Yankees and Stephen Drew is still on the free agent market after being let go last season. The Sox have Grady Sizemore and catcher A.J. Pierzynski starting for the team this season and that should make things interesting and they will be the favorites in the AL East until someone knocks them off after the year they had last season, which followed the disaster of 2012.
The Red Sox got a very good season out of John Lackey and they saw Lester lead in wins and strikeouts and now they are hoping for a solid year from David Ortiz to support Dustin Pedroia and the rest of the lineup. Ortiz comes back after another very good year and the Sox will start things off with Shane Victorino on the DL and they hope that will be a short stint and the team comes in after being one of the best offensive teams in the league last season, coming in first in runs and second in batting average and they also were first in on base and slugging percentage. The Orioles have names like Chris Davis and Jones ready for more success and after he hit 50 homers last season, Davis will be looking for a follow up.
Check here for the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles live coverage form ESPN2.
