Gee, Red Sox-Yankees on ESPN. Shocker. I would imagine that Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman is unavailable after pitching in each of the first two games of this series. Ditto fellow reliever Chad Green. Boston starter Tanner Houck had 2.70 ERA vs. New York in 13.1 innings last year. Obviously teams always WANT to win, but I'd think this matters just a bit more to the Sox to avoid the sweep. It's Jordan Montgomery on the bump for NYY, and Boston hit .264 vs. lefties last year, sixth-best in the majors. The wind is blowing out pretty hard and that should benefit the Sox because Houck is more of a strikeout/ground-ball pitcher than Montgomery is.

The Yankees are looking to sweep the Red Sox to start the season and that immediately makes me want to pick against it. Both teams are coming off playoff seasons and have playoff aspirations this year. They've played two competitive games and it just seems the natural flow of baseball means things will take care of themselves and avoid a sweep here. The Red Sox send talented youngster Tanner Houck to the mound and he's had good success in his limited time against the Yankees so far. DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson, Joey Gallo, Aaron Hicks and Aaron Judge are a combined 1 for 27 against him. The other regulars have never seen him and that's generally always a pitcher's advantage. On the other side, Xander Bogaerts (12 for 26) has killed Yankees starter Jordan Montgomery and Rafael Devers is 5 for 20 (a modest .250), but there's a double and home run in there. Houck is better in general, the Red Sox need this one more and things tend to try and even themselves out in baseball. Take the underdog odds on the Red Sox for Sunday night.