Baseball Service Picks for Tuesday

Michael Cannon Money Train
Tuesday Plays:

15 Dime –

CUBS (With Marquis and Backe as listed pitchers)
Take the Cubs for the road win over the Astros.
The Cubs are coming off an impressive 12-3 win over the Cardinals yesterday afternoon. Their offense finally broke out of the doldrums after scoring just 15 runs in their previous four games.
That surge should continue tonight against the Astros, who will start Brandon Backe.
Backe is making just his second start since undergoing elbow surgery in August 2006. He gave up four runs and eight hits in 5 2-3 innings of a 5-3 loss at Milwaukee last Tuesday.
While Backe continues his climb back from injury it should allow the Cubs bats to stay hot. Third-baseman Aramis Ramirez is 7-for-17 in his last four games and is batting .353 with a homer and eight RBIs in nine games against the Astros this year. First-baseman Derrick Lee is hitting .410 with three homers in 10 games this month.
Jason Marquis will start for the Cubs and although he’s pitched well in three of his last four starts he only has one win to show for it. He should be able to outpitch Backe tonight, and the Cubs offense will take care of the rest.
Take the Cubs for the road win.

5 Dime –

REDS (With Mulder and Belisle as listed pitchers)
Take the Reds for the home win over the Cardinals.
St. Louis will start Mark Mulder and he was tagged by the Pirates in his first outing of the season last Wednesday. The left-hander gave up six runs on eight hits in just four innings. His velocity is still down and his problem is hittable pitches, something the Reds should be able to take advantage of.
Playing in a hitter’s park is not going to benefit him as he continues to work himself back into shape.
Matt Belisle will start for the Reds and even though he’s no Cy Young candidate, his offense should provide him with plenty of run support. The right-hander does own a 1-0 record with a 0.95 ERA in 19 career innings against the Cardinals, so that should be enough to give the Reds the edge here.
Take Cincinnati for the home win.

INDIANS (With Byrd and Danks as listed pitchers)
Take the Indians as the big road chalk for the win over the White Sox.
Paul Byrd will start for the Tribe and he’s had good success against the White Sox in his career.
The right-hander is 7-2 with a 4.21 ERA in 12 lifetime outings against Chicago, including a 2-0 mark with a 1.71 ERA in three starts this season.
Byrd will be opposed by John Danks, who has routinely been pounded this year. The left-hander is 6-13 with a 5.41 ERA on the year, and has lost his last six outings.
With Cleveland having something to play for and the White Sox out of it, take the Tribe as the big road chalk for the win.

Larry Ness' 15* Pitching Mismatch of the Week (111-40 with 15* GOW plays this season!)
My 15* play is on the SD Padres at 10:10 ET. In what may have been one of the year's stupidest moves, the Padres allowed Jake Peavy (or they allowed Peavy to talk them into it?) to come back on just three days rest at Arizona last Wednesday. As if the ENTIRE season was riding on the outcome of that game! Peavy entered that game having allowed 10 ERs over 73.2 innings of 11 road starts this year (1.22 ERA) and also entered that contest 7-0 (team was 8-0) over his previous eight starts (anywhere), while allowing just eight ERs. So what happens? Peavy has his WORST outing of the year, allowing eight ERs in just four innings! With an off day for SD yesterday, Peavy's had five days of rest now and will face an LA team he's DOMINATED. He's 2-0 with a 1.95 ERA against the Dodgers in four starts this year (SD is 4-0) but that's hardly the whole story. Peavy (16-6, 2.43 ERA) is 8-1 with a 2.28 ERA in 17 career starts versus the Dodgers. In his last 11 outings against them, he is 6-0 with a 1.90 ERA. Peavy's only loss to the Dodgers was a 4-0 defeat Sept. 13, 2003. The Dodgers will turn to Esteban Loaiza (1-0, 3.86 ERA), who has delivered a quality start in each of his three outings since returning from a back injury that caused him to miss the first 4 1/2 months of the season. Loaiza started his first two games for Oakland before LA acquired him off waivers Aug 29. The right-hander made his Dodgers debut last Monday, holding the Chicago Cubs to three runs in seven innings in an 11-3 win. He's 2-0 with a 2.49 ERA overall this year. Loaiza is 1-3 with a 4.41 ERA in 11 career games, including eight starts (teams are 2-6), against the Padres. He's winless in eight games against them since 1998 and Loaiza is hardly up to the task of out-ptching Peavy! Pitching Mismatch of the Week 15* SD Padres.

Good Luck...Larry

Mike Rose
Texas Rangers @ Detroit Tigers o10.5 (100)
Tue Sep 11 '07 1:05p

Twin bill for the tigers and Rangers today as they get set to play two. The first game pits the Rangers Vicente Padilla vs. the Tigers Chad Durbin. Combined, these pitchers boast an ERA of 10.58, and I’ve got a very good feeling that both offenses get the day started off with a plethora of runs.

The Tigers are coming off a huge come from behind win over Toronto on Monday night, and they’ll no doubt take the field looking to get right back at chasing down the Wild Card leading Yankees.

Vicente Padilla has been a gas can on the road in each of the last few seasons, and I see nothing changing this afternoon. He comes into this game sporting a 1-6 mark with a 9.06 ERA when starting on the visitors mound, and he hasn’t fooled anyone in his day starts this year giving up 16 hits in 10 innings of work which equates to a robust 7.20 ERA.

His opponent, Chad Durbin, has been nothing short of mediocre this year. He owns an 8-6 mark with a 4.57 ERA, but has been very hittable allowing 126 hits in 124 innings of work. He’s not overpowering, and he’s semi wild registering 48 walks.

With both clubs simply pounding right-handed pitching of late, (Texas .310 / Detroit .307), I foresee a good old fashioned slugfest taking place provided the weather cooperates with us. Not even the cavernous Comerica will be able to keep these clubs off the board today as the Rangers and Tigers go at it in a high scoring matinee.

Chicago Cubs (-115)
Tue Sep 11 '07 8:05p

The Cubs and Jason Marquis were forced to swallow a bitter pill the last time he took the mound as Ryan Dempster took the bump in the 9th looking to close out a 4-3 win for the home team. The win wasn’t in the cards however as he went on to give up four runs, and the Dodgers escaped with a 7-4 win and broke the hearts of the Wrigley faithful.

Since partaking in a couple side sessions with pitching coach Larry Rothschild, Marquis has really turned the corner. He’s churned out six quality starts in a row with his last one coming against this exact same team.

Houston has pretty much mailed it in considering their 11 games out in the Central, and they’ve already started looking at guys for next season. Brandon Backe put forth an admirable performance in his ’07 debut vs. the Brewers, but Milwaukee prefers lefties while the Cubs would love nothing more than to sink their teeth into a soft tossing righty. With their offense coming alive of late and moving back into first yesterday with a big win over St. Louis, I’m looking for them to bring their “A” game with them to Houston and take the season series once and for all. It all starts tonight with Marquis, so play them as short chalks as they look to inch close towards securing a post-season invite.

Vernon Croy
G1 Texas Rangers vs. G1 Detroit Tigers

1 Unit, Take Detroit ML Game 1, This pick falls into one of my MLB systems and this game means a lot more to Detroit who is still trying to make the post-season. Chad Durbin (6-6 ERA 4.64) pitched solid in his last outing allowing just 4 hits over 5 innings. Texas is just 1-9 this season when Vicente Padilla (5-9 ERA 6.01) has pitched on the road and they are just 5-11 when he has pitched as an underdog. Padilla has struggled on the road this season with a 1-6 record over 10 starts and an ERA of 9.06. Padilla has allowed 80 hits on the road over 81.7 innings and this is a very good hitting Detroit ball club that erased a 3 run deficit in the 9th inning last night to cost me my 10 Unit MLB Smash. Texas is just 4-10 this season as a road dog of +150 to +175 and the Rangers opponents are averaging 5.7 rpg over their last 7 games. Have a great Tuesday! Vernon Croy

HONDO'S TEX. MESS

September 11, 2007 -- The A's followed Hondo's instructions to the letter last night, sinking the Mariners to inflate the bank roll to 275 wynns.

Today, Mr. Aitch is figuring on the Rangers to mow down Detroit - 10 units on Padilla.

Far be it from Hondo to make any cheap fat jokes about Britney Spears' performance at the VMAs. As far as Mr. Aitch is concerned, she looked flabulous . . Some who tuned into Brit's opening act thought they were watching a show about Very Massive Abdomens

Handicapper: IndianCowboy
Sport: MLB Baseball
Game: Tampa Bay Devil Rays @ Boston Red Sox - Tuesday September 11, 2007 7:05 pm
Pick: 3 unit(s) TOTAL: Under 10 (-117) (Play of the Day)

I like a couple of angles coming into this game. Sonn did not have a good start agianst Boston last time out and much like Kaz he will want to have a better showing against the Red Sox as Kaz had a start in which he'd like to forget against the sox his last time out and he came out this time and pitched splendidly. Much the same, Sonn has pitched 3 straight quality starts and had a 12+ ERA against Boston last time. Look for him to have a bounce-back this game as well as Wake who got roughed up by Baltimore with a 14+ ERA performance last time. Wake had pitched 5 of 6 quality starts before that and 3 straight unders against the Drays as he seems to have their number with 1.5 ERA, 0 ERA and 0 ERA (15innings of scoreless ball). The Drays have played in 4 straight unders, the under is 6-2 in the last 8 meetings and the under is 5-2 in Wake's last 7 starts against Drays.

Handicapper: IndianCowboy
Sport: MLB Baseball
Game: Minnesota Twins @ Kansas City Royals - Tuesday September 11, 2007 8:10 pm
Pick: 3 unit(s) TOTAL: Under 9 (-105) (Normal)
The very reason why I didn't take the over yesterday despite every trend pointing to it, is that these 2 teams cannot be trusted with the over. With that said, Baker has been pitching great baseball of late and is on a bounce-back giving up 11 hits in his last start, and earlier this year he gave up double-digits hits to the Mariners and then came back to give up 7 hits and 2 runs to the Orioles. He will do much the same to the Royals who are on an under trend due to a lack of hitting, and Baker has given up 3 hits and 1 run to this team in 17 innings - around a 0.6 ERA this season. Davies is turning the corner, but more importantly, he has great numbers against the Twins as he over powers them with his pitches. Davies has about a 1.8 ERA in his last 2 starts against them. Under is 6-1 when Baker starts on 5 days rest, under is 8-1 when the Royals face a winning team at home meaning their pitchers show up a bit more at home and the under is 17-4-1 in the Royals last 22 home games.

Handicapper: IndianCowboy
Sport: MLB Baseball
Game: St. Louis Cardinals @ Cincinnati Reds - Tuesday September 11, 2007 7:10 pm
Pick: 3 unit(s) TOTAL: Over 11 (-113) (Normal)

The bottom line here is I don't trust Mark Mulder. Not one bit. Injured or non-injury, he has struggled and the Reds have done well against him even when he was healthy. Heck, it is quite possibe that one of these teams gets nearly the total by themselves today as the Cards are reeling and they need a big game in scoring and who better than to face the Belisle and the over prone Reds since July 15th? Belisle has pitchedin 4 of 5 overs, typically pitches about 5 innings brings in the Cincy bullpen, the Carsd are likely to have Mulder go just 5 as well, which in turn brings their bullpen into the mix early as well. The over is 9-0-1 in Mulder's last 10, 5-1 when Mulder faces a team with a losing record and the over is 12-4 in the Reds last 16 road games.

Paul Leiner Tuesday Plays Taken From Another Site:

10* Cubs -115
5* Phillies -130
5* Rangers +150

Ben Burns' Blue Chip TOTAL BLOWOUT (1:05 est First Pitch!)
I'm playing on Texas and Detroit to finish UNDER the total in Game 1 of their Double-Header. Neither starter has very impressive stats for the season. However, both have pitched better lately and both are coming off excellent outings. In his last start, Durbin held the White Sox to four hits through five shutout innings. That game would finish with a final score of 3-2. Durbin, who will have the advantage of starting against Texas for the first time, has now seen the UNDER to 4-0 his last four starts. Padilla was even better in his last start as he allowed only two hits through six shutout innings vs. Kansas City. That game would also finish with a score of 3-2. Granted, the Tigers' offense is much better than the Royals' offense. However, Padilla has pitched well against the Tigers in the past. In fact, he is 2-0 with a stellar 2.70 ERA in three career starts vs. the Tigers, most recently allowing two hits through seven complete innings in a 3-2 loss at Detroit exactly one year ago. In his only other start at Detroit, Padilla also pitched seven complete innings and allowed only a single earned run. Including his gem vs. the Royals, Padilla has now seen the UNDER go 3-1-1 his last five starts. I'm expecting another relatively low-scoring affair with the final score finishing above the low number.

Wunderdog

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Game: Texas at Detroit (1:00 PM Eastern)
Pick: Texas +153

The Tigers are in a battle for their post-season lives, as they have faded over the last half of the season. They stood at 58-37, and appeared poised to defend their AL title, but have been just 30-39 since. Texas on the other hand suddenly believes they can finish at .500, which would be remarkable after a 23-42 start! The Rangers have been 45-32 in their last 77, and come to Detroit as the hottest team in baseball winning 12 of their last 14. The Rangers have scored 5+ runs in 11 of those games, and are averaging seven a game. Vicented Padilla did not get off to a good start, as the Rangers stood 2-11 in his first 13 starts, but have rebounded nicely, going 5-2 in his last seven, two of which Padilla gave up no runs. Chad Durbin lost his spot in the rotation, when the Tigers were playing well, and in the four starts he has made since, they are just 1-3, while his ERA has been over five. Gotta like the hot Rangers in this one. THIS IS A DOUBLEHEADER GAME 1 PLAY.

Chuck Franklin Tuesday Plays:

1500♦ NY YANKEES w/HUGHES over Toronto w/Marcum
I know the pitching edge seems to go to the Blue Jays in this game, as rookie Phil Hughes for the Yankees obviously doesn't have the experience or winning record that Shaun Marcum does for the Blue Jays. Still, I'm siding with the Yankees because they are on fire, winning each of their last five games. They are an amazing 42-18 in their last 60 games as the listed favorite! Toronto has lost each of their last three games and after tonight's game that losing trend will contiunue. The Yankees have been winners in six of the last eight meetings with the Blue Jays, and I expect another win tonight.

1500♦ PHILADELPHIA w/EATON over Colorado w/Morales
The Phillies are on a roll, fighting hard to make post season play. They have won eight of their last nine home games, and look to continue this trend with Adam Eaton taking the mound for them tonight. The Phillies have been winners in 10 of Eaton's last 14 starts vs. better than .500 teams. The Rockies will give the ball to southpaw rookie Franklin Morales, who is 0-2 with an ERA of 6.23 in his four major league starts. It is too bad for him that the Phillies are loving lefty pitching at home, winning 10 of their last 11 match-ups with left-handed starters here at Citizens Bank Park. Side with the Phillies in this one.

Always specify pitchers as listed

Doc's WNBA

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6 Unit Play. #606 Take Phoenix -5 ½ over Detroit (8:30 pm ESPN 2) In any series Game Three is the time you get the best effort from the team that does not have home court advantage. Phoenix was pleased with their split and expect them to pick up where they left off, dominating after a 28 point victory in game two. The Shock have trouble scoring points consistently and had a 28-point drop off from game one to game two. Expect the Mercury to reach triple digits again and easily come away with a double-digit victory. Phoenix has the best player on the court in Diane Taurasi, and the Shock have no answer for her.

best of luck - Doc's Sports

Wolkosky Milan

Today:

10* PHILLIES
10* PADRES
10* DIAMONDBACKS
10* BREWERS
10* BRAVES RL
10* WAS/FLA OVER

Free: CARDS

SCI Sports.

MAC SCI - Cle/Chw o9½

JON REIL SCI - Brewers -155
(Gallardo, Bullington)

TUL SCI - Padres -1½ +113
(Peavy, Loaiza)

northcoast feature

ACCUPIX
TOTAL OF THE MONTH 5 STAR ON BOSTON UNDER 10
4 STARS YANKEES
4 STARS CLEV.
3 STARS SAN DIEGO
3 STARS ST LOUIS

MASTER
TOP-PHILLYS
3 STARS ST LOUIE
3 STARS CUBBIES