#Blue Jays vs. Red Sox prediction: Pitching matchup makes Under the play

The Boston Red Sox’s pitching has been far from stellar this season, but a few bad performances might have it being critiqued a bit too harshly entering into Thursday’s game against the Blue Jays at Fenway Park.

Martin Perez has been a bright spot for Boston, giving up three runs or fewer in five of his past six starts and walking only one across his past two starts.

The Blue Jays have had instability in their starting rotation as well and traded for three starting pitchers at the deadline to address it. One of those is Thursday’s starter Taijuan Walker, who’s gone at least six innings with three runs or fewer surrendered in four of his past five starts, including six scoreless innings in his Blue Jays debut over the weekend against the Baltimore Orioles.

The bullpens have performed very differently, with the Blue Jays fourth in the MLB in bullpen ERA while the Red Sox are fifth-worst.

With the Red Sox entering Wednesday’s action having scored three runs or fewer in four of their past six games and Toronto having scored the fewest runs per game on the road among American League teams, this has the makings of a game that might fall short of the high-scoring expectations.

The play: Blue Jays-Red Sox total, Under 10¹/₂ runs.