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Boston will be riding a wave of emotion this weekend, as the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing was Tuesday and this is the first home series since then. This year's race will be Monday, and Boston as a city is proclaiming itself Boston Strong yet again, as they should.
And it is the Orioles who will try and play spoiler. Might I suggest looking to the 2001 Diamondbacks for inspiration? The Yankees made the World Series after the attacks on 9/11, and seemingly the entire baseball world aside from Arizona (and every baseball fan I knew) was behind the Yankees. Maybe not cheering for them so much as wanting to see New York triumph over adversity.
It was not to be. Arizona won that World Series in seven games, and in fact, the Yankees didn't win another World Series until eight years later, when the sold their souls to purchase Alex Rodriguez.
So let the city of Boston rejoice in its resilience. Let them tell the world the bad guys didn't win. But let them do it without a victory over the boys from Baltimore these next four games.
Chris Tillman (1-1, 0.84 ERA) makes the start against John Lackey (2-1, 3.86 ERA).