Unlike the Rays, the Red Sox haven’t changed a lick since the Yanks last saw them. Of course that was just two days ago in Boston. Both the Yanks and Sox swept two-game series on the road to start the week (the Sox doing so in Cleveland while the Yanks were in Tampa). The two rivals reconvene in the Bronx tonight with a rematch of the last series opener that saw Chien-Ming Wang outpitch and outlast Clay Buchholz as the Yanks won 4-1 behind Wang’s two-hitter.

The Yankee offense has averaged 5.17 runs over it’s last six games, but averaged just four per game in Boston. The last time through the rotation they allowed 4.6 runs per game. The Red Sox averaged 4.3 runs per game against the Yanks over the weekend and allowed 3.8 runs per game the last time through their rotation.

Joe Girardi posts his 16th unique lineup in 16 games tonight with Chad Moeller still catching and Jorge Posada back at DH at the expense of Johnny Damon, who yields left field to Hideki Matsui. Melky Cabrera leads off. Posada hits sixth between lefties Matsui and Jason Giambi.

As we saw over the weekend, the typical Sox lineup with Mike Lowell on the DL looks like this (a slight variation from what I posted in my last preview):

L – Jacoby Ellsbury/S – Coco Crisp (CF)
R – Dustin Pedroia (2B)
L – David Ortiz (DH)
R – Manny Ramirez (LF)
R – Kevin Youkilis (3B)
L – J.D. Drew (RF)
S – Jason Varitek (C)
L – Sean Casey (1B)
R – Julio Lugo (SS)

Jacoby Ellsbury is the man in center for the Sox tonight.