Baseball betting has the New York Mets hosting the Boston Red Sox in Grapefruit League action on Thursday in a game that will be televised on the MLB Network. It should be a popular exhibition MLB betting game since the Red Sox and Mets are marquee teams. Baseball betting has the Red Sox getting their rotation set for the regular season. Boston has a strong starting staff that will impact baseball betting results, led by Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and John Lackey. The Red Sox signed Lackey in the off-season to a five-year, $82.5 million deal and he should give Boston a chance to win in MLB betting every time he pitches. Manager Terry Francona has not announced who will start the season opener against the Yankees but Lackey doesn’t believe he should get the start. “I’m not worried about that at all,” Lackey said. “If the roles were reversed, and I would have stayed in Anaheim and those guys had come over there, I would expect to still be going first. I think those guys have earned the right. They’ve won a lot of games for [manager Terry Francona], and to go in front of me, I’m all right with that.” Lackey is just focused on staying healthy and getting ready for the season. “It’s something I’ve taken into account, working out, trying to strengthen my arm a bit more and being a little more careful in my throwing program,” said Lackey.
Baseball betting has the Red Sox top three starters being Lackey, Beckett and Lester. The Red Sox expect that Daisuke Matsuzaka will be the fourth starter when he gets in game shape and then it will be Tim Wakefield and perhaps Clay Buchholz. “Basically we have six guys. They all look healthy. They all look really productive,” said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. “Dice-K is a couple of weeks behind everybody. But I think the idea is, we want Buchholz to be in our rotation for the next [several] years. I think we all expect that’s going to happen. That’s kind of what we told him. I don’t know that it was important for us, or necessary the first day of Spring Training to tell him where he’s going to pitch, because we don’t know that. I think we all want him to take this and go with it.” There is no question that the Red Sox have a talented pitching staff that can win games in baseball betting.