DAVE COKIN
WHITE SOX VS. ANGELS
PLAY: WHITE SOX +130
Tough to ‘cap these two starting pitchers, as both Miguel Gonzalez and Hector Santiago are highly erratic. Each is capable of getting drilled, although the two veterans went into the break off two good starts each.
My overall numbers slightly favor Gonzalez. The team data points to the Chisox. They’ve been very productive against lefties, although I should mention that in limited dealings Santiago has shut down their big bats. The White Sox bullpen has been erratic on the road, but they do have better overall numbers than their Angels counterparts.
One notable difference between these two is close game results. The White Sox have been outscored by 12 runs altogether, but have a winning record. The Halos are only -20 net runs, yet they’re 15 games under .500. That speaks volumes about their lack of ability to win tight battles, and this game has that look.
I look at this game as being pretty close to dead even, with the Pale Hose getting the majority of check marks via category comparisons. So with the price where it is, I can build a decent case for the White Sox and they’re the play for Friday evening.
Bruce Marshall
Minnesota +140
Tempting price on the surging Twins, whose offense got in gear before the All-Star break and contributed to battering the Texas staff. Twins starter Ervin Santana has been on the mark lately off a complete game shutout over the A's and allowing just 2 runs over his last 15 1/3 IP.
Rob Vinciletti
Rangers vs. Cubs
Play: Cubs -191
On Friday MLB Play resumes and we have a Powerful system that has won 14 of 15 times since 2004, which is a solid 93% win rate. The system as seen below has won 13 straight times and plays on the Chicago Cubs in the first game back an afternoon game vs the Texas Rangers. The Power system plays on Home favorites like the Cubs that come back off a road win, where they scored 5+ runs, vs an opponent like Texas that lost as a -140 or higher home favorite last out while scoring 5 or more runs in that loss. The impressive part of this system is that the home team wins by an average 6-2 score. The Cubs were able to avoid the sweep winning in Pittsburgh but have slumped of late and will look to get back on track against the Texas Rangers who have been surging of late and come in with the best record. The Cubs have the home field advantage here and are a solid 6-0 as a home favorite off a road win and 25-7 here after scoring 6+ runs in their last game. Texas has lost 4 of 5 as a road dog off a home loss of late. The Cubs are scoring over 5 runs per game this year and have a Team ERA that is a full run lower at 3.34 than Texas has on the season. The Rangers have Martin Perez on the mound and he has struggled in July road games having lost 4 of 5 games. He is likely to struggle against the Vaunted Chicago offense here today. The Cubs counter with Kyle Hendricks. In his last 4 starts he has been super with the Cubs winning all four. Hendricks has been much better in his career in home starts historically and knows how to pitch in a park where the wind could wreak havoc. With the power system below, the teams angles, statistical indicators and Pitching matchup we will Back the Chicago Cubs in this potential World series matchup.
Mike Lundin
Marlins vs. Cardinals
Play: Cardinals -141
The St. Louis Cardinals have not had much success home at Busch Stadium this season and entered the All Star break with a 19-26 home record. They've won eight of the past 11 when hosting the Miami Marlins though, and this looks like a good spot to back the Cards.
Left-hander Jaime Garcia (6-6, 4.01) takes the ball for St. Louis. He's 2-0 with a 1.07 ERA in four career meetings with Miami. He has the current Marlins roster limited to a .218 batting average over 78 at bats.
The Marlins turn to another southpaw in Wei-Yin Chen (5-3, 4.83 ERA) who'll face the Cardinals for the first time in his career. Chen has struggled with the long ball on the road this season, serving up 11 homers through 48 innings of work.
The All Star break has given the banged up Cardinals a chance to recuperate, and both Trevor Rosenthal (hamstring) and Matt Holliday (ankle) should be available again and Kevin Siegrist (mononucleosis) is expected to rejoin the Cardinals' bullpen on Friday night.
Scott Spreitzer
Baltimore at Tampa Bay
Play: Baltimore +132
Tampa Bay has lost Chris Archer's last six starts and nine of his last 10, including a 6-5 loss last Friday when the right-hander allowed five runs and seven hits in six innings after throwing 116 pitches. Baltimore hitters have a collective .802 OPS versus Archer and already this season, the Orioles have tagged Archer for six runs and 15 hits in 11 2/3 innings. Yovani Gallardo has made five starts since coming off the disabled list and Baltimore has won four of them as he generally has kept his team in the game while pitching five or six innings. The Rays are second to last in the major leagues with a home batting average of .231 and they have lost seven of their last eight home games.
Marc Lawrence
Cleveland Minnesota
Play: Cleveland -140
Edges - Indians: Carlos Carrasco 1.81 ERA and 0.83 WHIP away stats this season; and 2.15 ERA with 1.07 WHIP last seven overall starts; and 5-1 team starts versus A.L. Central foes this season. Twins: Ervin Santana 3-13 overall team starts this season, including 0-7 at night. With that look for Carrasco to improve to 4-0 in his last four away team starts during July here tonight. We recommend a 1* play on Cleveland.
Scott Rickenbach
Pirates vs. Nationals
Play: Under 8
Stephen Strasburg gets the start for the Nats and he is 12-0 this season with a 2.62 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP. Incredibly, he has been an "over machine" when he is on the mound this season but that certainly hasn't been because of his pitching. Strasburg has been fantastic on the mound but the Nationals have simply provided him with tons of run support. That is unlikely to be the case today. The Pirates will have Francisco Liriano on the mound and he went head to head with the Cubs Jake Arrieta in his final start before the All Star break and he prevailed. I look for a similar result here. Liriano is a big game pitcher and the last time he faced Washington he held them to 1 earned run on 3 hits in 6 innings of work while striking out 11 batters. Strasburg has struck out 27 Pirates in 22 innings in his last 3 starts against Pittsburgh. He has a solid 2.83 ERA in his 5 career starts against them. I look for Washington to stay under the total for a fourth straight game. Also, in the four career starts that Liriano has made against the Nationals only one went over the total. In the five career starts that Strasburg has made against the Pirates only one has gone over the total. More of the same here!
Brandon Shively
Pirates vs. Nationals
Play: Over 7½
I think there is a good chance we see more runs than expected Friday night. The Pirates offense entered the All-Star Break averaging 6 runs a game over their last seven games, and the OVER going 4-1 their last five. The Nationals will be facing Francisco Liriano of the Pirates who is a left hander and the Nationals rank #1 in the Majors with a .353 weighted on base average against left handers. And Liriano has not shown much promise this season, especially on the road. Opposing batters have a .524 SLG% and a .389 wOBA vs Liriano on the road this season and that is why he has a FIP of 6.56 on the road. I want to note Liriano’s xFIP on the road this season: 4.99, 6.25, 5.70, 5.27, 2.62, 4.36, 6.34, and 5.98.
The Nationals will have Stephen Strasburg on the rubber who is getting 6.8 runs of support a game this season. Strasburg has walked 7 batters in his last two starts which is a potential red flag and give me optimism for extra baserunners reaching base tonight. I think there should be some regression coming in the 2nd half of the season for Strasburg. His last three starts he has been fortunate to strand all baserunners which should be coming to an end tonight against a Pirates offense that is playing their best ball of the season.
Trends that point in our favor as well: The OVER is 13-3 in Strasburg’s 16 starts this season. The OVER is 4-0 in Liriano’s last four starts. The OVER has cashed in 64% of the Nationals last 53 home games vs a left handed starter.
Larry Ness
Boston vs. New York
Pick: New York
The Red Sox return from the All Star break with a 49-38 record, leaving them tied for second-place in the AL East with the Blue Jays, two games back of the Orioles. The Yankees open the season’s second half at 44-44. New York has reached .500 eight times since May 24 but have yet to surpass it. The team is 7 1/2 games behind the Orioles in the AL East and 5 1/2 out of the second wild card with six teams (Toronto, Houston, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City and Seattle) ahead of them. The Yankees will begin a 10-game homestand against three of the best teams in the majors starting Friday night when they face the Boston Red Sox. Boston leads baseball in runs scored (490), batting average (.292), on-base percentage (.359), slugging percentage (.474), OPS (.833) and doubles (216).
Steven Wright (10-5, 2.68 ERA) starts for the Red Sox and Michael Pineda (3-8, 5.38 ERA) gets the nod for the Yankees. Wright entered the break with back-to-back wins despite allowing a combined nine ERs on 17 hits in just 11 innings (7.36 ERA) against the LA Angels and Texas Rangers. Wright opened the 2016 season having made a modest 26 appearances over the previous three seasons, including just 11 starts (7-5 with a 3.95 ERA). Wright is 3-1 with a 1.33 ERA in four outings (three starts / 2-1 with an 0.82 ERA) against the Yankees.
Pineda is 4-4 with a 4.50 ERA in nine career starts against the Red Sox (teams are 5-4), including two starts this year. In an 8-0 loss at Fenway Park on April 30 Pineda allowed two runs and five hits in five innings. Then on May 6 in New York, he gave up two runs on eight hits in six innings of a 3-2 win. Pineda had a 2.75 ERA in six June starts (allowed three ERs or less in each) but began July by allowing five runs on five hits in six innings during a 5-0 loss at Chicago on July 6. It marked the SIXTH time he allowed at least five runs.
Pineda has had two solid efforts vs the Red Sox in 2016 and I believe Boston’s Wright will not come close to matching his first half success in the season’s second half. Yanks earn a win and move above .500.
Jim Feist
White Sox at Angels
Pick: Over
This is a good offensive park and Chicago has a bad starter going in Miguel Gonzalez (4.39 ERA). Chicago is 6-2 over the total against a losing team, plus the Over is 5-0 in the White Sox's last 5 road games vs. a left-handed starter. LA has picked it up offensively and the Over is 9-2 in the Angels last 11 home games. And the Over is 8-2 in Santiago's last 10 starts overall.
Kevin Rogers
Marlins at Cardinals
Play: Marlins
The Marlins travel to St. Louis to face the Cardinals for the first time this season, as Miami is coming off a three-game sweep of Cincinnati. The Cardinals have struggled at home recently by posting a 4-10 record in their last 14 games at Busch Stadium. St. Louis is 3-6 in Jaime Garcia's nine home starts this season, while the Cardinals are 1-4 in his last five starts as a home favorite. Wei-Yin Chen is listed as a road underdog for the third time this season, as the Marlins are 2-0 in his two away dog starts, including a 5-2 victory against the Mets in his last outing. I'll back the Marlins to beat the Cardinals.
Hollywood Sports
Kansas City at Detroit
Pick: Detroit
Kansas City (45-43) has been a terrible team away from for the first-half of this season. The Royals have lost 16 of their last 21 games on the road. KC has also lost 5 straight road games with Kennedy making the start. Detroit (46-43) has won 11 of their last 15 games at home in Comerica Park. The Tigers have also won 5 of their last 7 games against teams with a winning record with Verlander on the mound.
ASA
Hamilton at Montreal
Play: Hamilton
Road teams continue to win in the CFL (over 73%) and even though we went against that abnormal trend last night and lost we will side with it here. The deciding factors for this wager are health, turnovers and overall team strength with clearly favor the Ti-Cats in this match up. Montreal is beat up at this time as they are without their starting QB Kevin Glenn and will start 2nd year player Rakeem Cato, missing two of their top three wideouts (Stafford and Green) along with running back Tyrell Sutton. Montreal comes into this game 1-1 SU with a win over a bad Winnipeg team and 15-point loss to Ottawa which was much more worse than the final score as they got outgained by over 200 yards in that game. Hamilton is 1-2 SU with a win over Toronto and a pair of losses to BC and Winnipeg. The Ti-Cats actually outgained the Blue Bombers last week but they turned the ball over 7 times. Montreal’s defensive statistics are misleading and they are not as good as the numbers would indicate while Hamilton is better statistically than they have shown if it weren’t for an abnormal amount of turnovers. Hamilton has covered the spread in 12 of their last fourteen on the road while Montreal is just 2-7 ATS their last nine games overall. Take Hamilton as a pick’em Friday.
Greg Shaker
Baltimore +117
As we begin the 2nd half of the MLB Season selectivity is going to be the Rule (Most of the Time) and thoughts on each play are going to be the point with no Bullshit. The BS thing means that we are not going to throw a bunch of stats at you. The fact is there are only a few things to look at when considering whether there is strong value on an MLB Play. Most often it's not about whether a pitcher is HOT or whether a team is hitting HOT. THAT is what most people want to hear though. Often those exact things are the primary reasons to bet AGAINST an MLB Team since they have OUTPLAYED their Value in the short run. Teams do have certain tendencies though and we will look toward that as well as things we know happen long term.
We do know that in this game that Archer has not had terrific success verses some of the key hitters in the O's lineup. We do know that Gallardo (Post DL List) has struggled with control. Which thrower might have his "Stuff" tonight is not an easy thing to predict but we know for sure that the Orioles Second Line Pitching is one of the BEST in the Big's and TB's is NOT. Having a rested GOOD Pen is a strong advantage especially when YOUR Team scores Over 1 run More Per game. This number actually opened near EVEN at BOL but quickly went South to Tampa. There's no reason to believe that BOL knew what they were doing. Recent Betting has this one moving back the other way..
Rocketman
White Sox @ Angels
Play: Angels -129
The Chicago White Sox travel to Los Angeles to take on the Angels on Friday night. Chicago White Sox are 45-43 SU overall this year while the LA Angels come in with a 37-52 SU overall record on the season. Miguel Gonzalez is 2-4 with a 4.48 ERA overall this year and 1-2 with a 4.66 ERA his last 3 starts. Hector Santiago is 2-0 with a 2.84 ERA his last 3 starts. Santiago is 1-1 with a 2.19 ERA in his two starts vs Chicago White Sox in his career. LA Angels are scoring 5.7 runs per game while allowing only 3.4 runs per game their past 7 games overall. LA Angels are 6-1 at home vs Chicago White Sox the past 3 years. We'll recommend a small play on the LA Angels tonight!