Aug 2nd 2008 12:30PM by Pat Lackey (author feed)

On Deck is FanHouse’s look at the day’s most intriguing baseball matchups

Oakland Athletics (53-55) at Boston Red Sox (62-48)- 7:05 PM EST
As debuts go, making two nice catches and scoring both of your new teams’ runs in a 2-1 win that helped end a slide of 5 losses in six games is a pretty nice way to start off a career with a new team. That’s exactly what Jason Bay did last night with the Red Sox. The thing is, anyone that follows the Red Sox can tell you that it’s going to take a whole lot more than that from the guy that’s replacing Manny Ramirez in the lineup.

Tonight, he gets his second start in left field at Fenway while the Red Sox try to stave off the Yankees (who they’re 2.5 games up on) and/or catch the Rays (who they’re three) games behind. Whatever happens to the Red Sox down the stretch, Bay’s going to play a huge part in it.Continue Reading