Less than two months ago, Ryan Dempster faced the Boston Red Sox as a member of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field and shut them down, going 7 innings while allowing five hits and no runs en route to a 3-0 Cubs victory.
Granted, the Red Sox were an absolute mess back in mid-June, and they still aren't fantastic, but they're better and they're getting healthy.
So now Dempster will look to rebound against that same Red Sox club after an underwhelming Rangers debut when he gave up eight earned runs in 4 2/3 innings to the hot-hitting Los Angeles Angels. There was some panic amongst Rangers fandom after the Dempster debut, but it was incredibly hot, it was his debut, he had to have been nervous and he was facing an insanely hot lineup on a night that the jet stream was working its magic. Those aren't excuses, just facts.
It's been speculated by many people "in the know" that Dempster's game won't translate well to the American League. And while it's true he's probably not going to be the front-of-the-rotation guy with a sub-3.00 ERA he was for the Cubs, he's also not going to be giving up gobs of runs while not eating any innings. He's basically Colby Lewis. He'll get his next chance to prove that tonight.
