BOSTON — As the Red Sox return home Friday after a tough week-long road trip, Ceddanne Rafaela will be in his natural position and Masataka Yoshida isn’t in the lineup.

Rafaela is in center field against the Marlins and righty Sandy Alcantara with Roman Anthony serving as the designated hitter and Jarren Duran in left field in Friday’s series opener. Effectively, manager Alex Cora picked Romy Gonzalez (playing second base) over Yoshida, who is sitting. Gonzalez has been starting more against right-handed pitchers and will do so again against Alcantara, a former National League Cy Young winner (2022) who has struggled throughout the year.

“I feel like we have to take care of Masa,” said Cora. “(He had) major surgery, and you have to make sure he’s on point. He’ll play two out of three. When everybody’s playing, Ceddanne is going to play second base.”

Rafaela, a superb defensive center fielder, has made 14 starts at second base since Marcelo Mayer sprained his wrist. Bizarrely, Rafaela has hit .280 with an .808 OPS while playing center field but just .136 with a .313 OPS as the second baseman. Cora doesn’t think there’s a correlation but the numbers are still striking.

The Red Sox, after winning just two of their six games on the road, enter the homestand five games behind the Blue Jays in the American League East race and two games clear of the Guardians in the wild card race. Boston occupies the second wild card spot and is currently seeded between the Mariners and Yankees.

On Friday, righty Lucas Giolito will try to bounce back from a rough start last weekend in which he walked six batters and allowed four runs on five hits in 4 ⅔ innings in a loss to the Padres. Giolito has a 4.82 ERA in five starts since the All-Star break.

The Marlins, who were above .500 in both June and July, are 6-8 so far in August. Miami is six games out of a wild card spot as it makes its first trip to Fenway since June 2023. The Marlins swept that three-game set.

The Sox are 39-22 at Fenway. First pitch is at 7:10 p.m. ET.

MIAMI MARLINS (58-63) @ BOSTON RED SOX (66-56) · FENWAY PARK · BOSTON, MA · GAME 123

FIRST PITCH: 7:10 p.m. ET

TV CHANNEL: NESN

Related: Stream the Red Sox live on NESN via FuboTV or DirecTV Stream

RADIO: WEEI 93.7 FM

PITCHING PROBABLES: RHP Sandy Alcantara (6-11, 6.55 ERA) vs. RHP Lucas Giolito (8-2, 3.77 ERA)

RED SOX LINEUP:

1) DH Roman Anthony

2) 3B Alex Bregman

3) LF Jarren Duran

4) SS Trevor Story

5) RF Wilyer Abreu

6) 2B Romy Gonzalez

7) 1B Abraham Toro

8) CF Ceddanne Rafaela

9) C Carlos Narváez

MARLINS LINEUP:

1) 2B Xavier Edwards

2) LF Kyle Stowers

3) C Agustin Ramirez

4) DH Liam Hicks

5) SS Otto Lopez

6) CF Jakob Marsee

7) 1B Eric Wagaman

8) 3B Graham Pauley

9) RF Dane Myers

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