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(Sports Network) - The Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics resume their season-opening series this evening with the first of two games at McAfee Coliseum.

These teams lifted the lid on the 2008 campaign over in Japan with a two-game series last week. Boston won the first game in extra innings, while Oakland exacted a measure of revenge in the finale to earn the split at the Tokyo Dome.

Daisuke Matsuzaka started the opener for the Red Sox on March 25, as he made his return to the Land of the Rising Sun. Matsuzaka was shaky early on, as he allowed a pair of runs in the first inning, while walking two, hitting a batter and tossing a wild pitch. However, he settled down after that and gave up just one hit in his final four innings, but did not factor in the decision.

Matsuzaka is 0-1 lifetime against the A's with a 3.00 earned run average in two starts.

Opposing Matsuzaka last week was right-hander Joe Blanton and he will once again get the call tonight. Blanton was marvelous through the first five innings for the A's that day, but ran into trouble in the sixth and surrendered three runs before leaving with two outs in the frame.

Blanton has faced the Red Sox six times and is 2-1 against them with a 3.76 ERA.

Matsuzaka and Blanton will be the first two pitchers to start two of their teams' first three games since 2004, when Victor Zambrano and Mike Mussina did it for Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees, who also started the season in Japan.

Manny Ramirez, who hit just .202 in April last season, was the offensive star for Boston over in Japan, as he put the Red Sox ahead in the 10th inning of the first game with a two run double and batted .333 over the two-game series with a home run and five RBI.

Oakland has won 12 of the last 20 matchups, including seven of the last 10 matchups played in the Bay Area.