JIMMY BOYD
Dodgers -120
Los Angeles is showing some great value here as a small road favorite here against the Brewers. The Dodgers have won two straight and are starting to swing the bats well. Milwaukee is a clear class below the top NL teams and are just 4-9 in their last 13.
The Brewers will send out Junior Guerra, who is 4-1 with a respectable 3.67 ERA in 10 starts, but he really struggled against the Dodgers just a couple weeks back. Guerra gave up 5 runs in just 5 1/3 innings of work. With the way LA is locked in at the plate, I look for another tough outing here for the 31-year-old rookie.
I'll instead take my chances on Dodgers youngster Brock Stewart, who will be making his MLB debut. Stewart has come out of no where for LA, as he's rapidly climbed the ranks in the minors. Stewart has dominant at Class A, Double-A and Triple-A. He had 27 strikeouts in just 18 2/3 innings in his 3 starts at Triple-A. The price is right and the opponent is bad enough to jump all over Stewart in this spot.
Brewers are just 20-44 in their last 64 against a team with a winning record, 16-37 in their last 53 against the NL West, 1-5 in their last 6 after scoring 5 or more runs and 1-7 in their last 8 after giving up 5 or more.
SPORTS WAGERS
Minnesota -101 over CHICAGO
For the first time all season, the Twins are coming to the ballpark with win expectations. They’re also having fun for the first time this year. The Twinkies have won two in a row and five of eight. They have a couple of sweet looking rooks in Max Kepler and the speedy Byron Buxton. They took the opener of this series last night against Carlos Quintana and they have a great chance to keep it going here with Ricky Nolasco on the hill.
Nolasco owns an ugly 4.95 ERA after 15 starts but his xERA is 4.08 so he is absolutely worth a look here. Nolasco’s overall skills are quite good with 7.9 K’s/9, 1.6 BB’s/9 and a 45% groundball rate. His unfortunate 43% hit rate with runners on base is the highest mark in MLB. As it regresses, so will his ERA and his current command has never been better in his career.
For the first time in his brief career with the White Sox, James Shields didn’t get blown up in his last start. It wasn’t exactly a Big Game by any stretch of the imagination, but Shields completed five innings, allowing three runs on five hits. He gave his team something resembling a chance to win. It was progress but it didn’t matter because James Shields’ socks are stained red with the blood of his enemies. In four games since the South Side did the Padres a huge favor, Shields has been tagged for 29 hits and 24 runs in 13.2 innings. The final scores in those games were 11-4, 10-9, 13-2 and 8-7. Besides allowing 29 hits, Shields also walked 13 batters in those 13.2 frames for a total of 42 baserunners in 13.2 innings since the White Sox brass figured paying this guy 7M per was a good idea. We’re not even sure how one can have 42 baserunners in 13.2 innings. That’s more than the bases loaded every inning. How can we not fade him in an evenly priced game?
CINCINNATI +178 over Chicago
Winning was so easy for the Cubbies in the first 2½ months of the season but it’s not so easy anymore. Chicago is 9-9 over its past 18 games and 3-6 over its past nine. They are 2-0 in Cincinnati over the past two games but could just as easily be 0-2 after a 15-inning win last night and an 11-8 victory on Monday. In that Monday victory, the game was tied 8-8 going to the eighth inning. The Reds knocked out Jake Arrieta in the fifth inning. After facing Jon Lester and Arrieta the past two games, Cinci takes a step down in class in facing Kyle Hendricks.
Hendricks has seven pure quality starts in 14 games. He’s under .500 too with five wins and six losses. Hendricks’ 2.76 ERA is the direct result of an unsustainable 78% strand rate. His strand rate over his last five games is 88%. Hendricks’ is a rare breed in that he’s a finesse right-hander. His average fastball velocity is 87 MPH. There is no question that he’s serviceable but his xERA and other skills scream out that regression is forthcoming. There is also no doubt that he’s overpriced in a big way.
Cody Reed has little market appeal here because he is not known and because he has a 6.75 ERA after two starts since being called up. That provides us with a great opportunity here, as Reed’s xERA is 3.31. Reed is so impressive. He’s been done in by a high 39% hit rate and low 65% strand rate. He has all the raw stuff to dominate and that includes high heat with life, a solid groundball rate in his minor league career of 53% (52% in his first two MLB starts), a high swing and miss rate and very good control. Reed has struck out 15 batters in 12 innings over his first two starts with a 64% first-pitch strike rate. His stock is low right now because of his misleading results but he’s at the top of the class of rookie prospects. For all you fantasy players in keeper leagues, scoop this guy up as fast as you can because he has the tools to dominate for a very long time. For all you bettors, invest at prices like this.
SAN DIEGO +126 over Baltimore
Frankly, we could not care less about San Diego’s starter here. What we know for sure is that Christian Friedrich is holding his own and has given the Padres some good innings this year. This wager is all about taking a tag back against Yovani Gallardo, one of MLB’s worst, if not the worst starter in baseball. The Orioles overachieving ways may come to an end soon too so when the combination of Gallardo and Baltimore are favoured on the road, it’s an instafade.
One could make the argument that nearing the halfway mark of the 2016 season there are only two major (positive) surprise teams in baseball: the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles. The Rangers aren’t even that surprising; they’re having the kind of breakout season that makes the skepticism difficult to remember. The team is sequencing its runs like a crooked dealer, their touted young players like Nomar Mazara and Jurickson Profar are ahead of schedule, and the pitching staff ... okay, the pitching staff still doesn’t make any sense. But it wasn’t hard to conceive of a good Texas Rangers team, even if many experts chose not to.
Not so the Orioles. After leaping out of the gate with a seven-game winning streak, the club has since held at an 87-win pace, and enjoys one of the best records in baseball. Despite analytics treating them as a sub-.500 team going forward, their banked victories still give them a coin flip’s toss at the playoffs. Real or fake, they’re in the hunt.
The Orioles are baseball’s most absurd present playoff hopeful. After playing Thug #2 to New York and Boston for more than a decade, Baltimore hasn’t had a losing record since 2011, one of only four teams in baseball to hold such a distinction. Yet few have been impressed. The Orioles were the only team in the AL East that no expert predicted to win the division, banished by most to the cellar.
The O’s only had two massive disappointments, which happen to be two of their most highly-paid players. Meanwhile, they’ve had seven players dramatically exceed expectations, and two of those (Manny Machado and Hyun-Soo Kim) so wildly that they nearly break the scale. This doesn’t mean that the team is flawless; Mike Wright isn’t a huge disappointment in terms of predictions, because he’s been just slightly worse than the terrible output analytics expected of him. There are still plenty of holes on the roster. It’s not that the Orioles are bad, necessarily, it’s that they don’t make sense.
The distinctive characteristic of team-building in the modern era of baseball is its strategy: The advantage, the loophole, the grand plan that gives a team an advantage over all others. The examples are well worn by now, but we still think of teams in terms of the edges they seek. Moneyball is cliche, but we still have the Dodgers’ health research, Pittsburgh’s pitching philosophy, and the Rangers' international scouting. Baltimore lacks any such identity. They don’t draft particularly well, or develop the players they draft. They’re willing to spend, but they can’t rival Boston or Los Angeles. Their president is an old hand, and their owner is meddlesome to the point of self-destruction. They don’t do any one thing that a fan or an analyst can pick out and say, “This is the logic. This is why this team wins.”
The Orioles also rely on variance offensively, in the form of the home run. They’ve hit more than any other team in the majors. This would seem like a defensible strategy, and it is, but there is still a quiet bias against the team that relies on power to score its runs; people feel like the home runs will stop at some point. Perhaps it will, but given the power in the lineup, it can hardly be assumed.
Still, we have a really hard time believing in Baltimore because they are so beatable. They rely far too heavily on the long ball and at some point they are going to be playing from behind in most games because their starting pitching is so bad. The O’s decision to replace the steadying force of Wei-Yen Chen with questionable in-house options and Yovani Gallardo appears, to this point, unfortunate. It may be time to start fading the Orioles almost daily for a stretch of 20 to 30 games because they are overpriced daily and should not be winning so many games.
Gallardo is the closest thing to batting practice as there is, only pitching machines throw more strikes. Gallardo has a BB/K split of 13/17 in 28 innings. His swing and miss rate is 5% and his WHIP is 1.69. Over his last 10 innings, Gallardo has walked six, hit two batters and given up 12 hits. That’s 20 baserunners over his past 10 innings but that’s what he’s been doing all year. His 87 MPH heat isn’t fooling anyone. San Diego has some of MLB’s best offensive numbers over the past 30 games and they are more than capable of putting up a crooked number here, even at Petco. This is a bad number in our favour and we’re not about to miss it.
Houston -1½ +107 over L.A. ANGELS
Mike Scioscia may not last past the All-Star break. The Angels are 32-46. They have lost eight of nine and scored one lousy run on Scott Feldman last night. The Halos are not responding to Scioscia and after 13 years, it’s time for a change. Only the Colorado Rockies (and we don’t count them) have allowed more runs to cross the plate than the Angels. The bullpen is overly taxed and we can almost guarantee that there will be early movement in said pen here. Jared Weaver is not the solution to what ails L.A. He’s part of the problem. It’s no secret as to who Jared Weaver is. His xERA told us we were living on the wire with him for years and it finally snapped. With fastball velocity that resembles many changeups, batters are feasting. Weaver is one of only four starters that gives up more than 10+ hits/9, and 1.4 HR/9. He’s an extreme fly-baller with a growing HR issue and very few strikeouts. We promise you that if the Angels weren’t paying this stiff 18.2 mill per season, he wouldn’t be anywhere near a baseball diamond. Weaver doesn’t even enjoy playing anymore.
By contrast, Dallas Keuchel is an intense competitor that got off to a very rough start this season. We pointed out his problems then but he is slowly getting back to being the dominating Cy Young winner he was last season. Keuchel has a 5/31 BB/K split over his last 32 innings. He has the highest groundball rate in MLB over his last seven starts at 65%. He was having control problems early in the year, which forced him to come in with pitches that were hittable but he’s corrected that in a big way. Keuchel is back trending in the right direction and it’s also worth noting that the Astronauts are red-hot. This is not only a pitching mismatch in the Astros favour, it is also a state of mind mismatch.
MILWAUKEE +111 over Los Angeles
At 31 years old, Junior Guerra came with little fanfare when he was called up in early May. Guerra has been able to tread water at the MLB level with a 3.67 ERA and 1.14 WHIP through 10 starts and it’s all legit. Guerra's above-average swing and miss rate shows he's been able to generate whiffs against MLB hitters so we can expect his decent K-rate to continue. Guerra's luck indicators haven't had a major impact either way, as his xERA is roughly in line with his surface ERA. He throws 94 MPH heat with late life. His swing and miss rate is 13% and his groundball rate in his last start was 56%. Now he’s a pooch at home to a pitcher that started the year in High-A ball.
Brock Stewart began 2016 in High-A and quickly moved his way up the ladder by mixing his pitches and continuing to post high K rates at each level. The tall, athletic righty has a very fresh arm. He was drafted in the 6th round in 2014 despite not seeing much mound time in college. The Dodgers were intrigued with his pure arm strength and athleticism and have seen him bypass several other arms in the system. Despite the lack of mileage on his arm, he has outstanding command of a three pitch arsenal. He can run his fastball into the 91-96 mph range and he mixes in a hard slider and below average change-up. Stewart throws with some effort in his delivery and while it may not be textbook, he throws good strikes to all quadrants of the zone. Thing is, he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher and while that may play well at Chavez Ravine, it is not likely to play well at Miller Park. Stewart has 18 innings of experience above Double A and 56 innings experience above High A. Dude is moving a little too fast because the Dodgers are desperate for pitching help. Anything that starts too fast usually ends too fast and this could very well be an example of that. If Stewart is that good, all the best to him but he wasn’t even on the prospect list before the season began. He was pitching for Rancho Cucamonga in April and now he’s favoured on the road in Milwaukee in June.
Larry Ness
San Francisco vs. Oakland
Pick: San Francisco
The A’s return to Oakland after winning the first two of this four-game series against the Giants in San Francisco on Monday (8-3) and Tuesday (13-11). The last time the A’s were home, they lost SIX of nine to the Texas Rangers, LA Angels and Milwaukee Brewers. The good news is, left-handed starter Sean Manaea and right fielder Josh Reddick rejoin the team off the DL plus lefty Rich Hill is scheduled to do the same on Saturday. "We're starting to get a little healthier, which is a good thing," A's manager Bob Melvin proudly proclaimed Tuesday before Oakland's 13-11 win over the Giants in San Francisco. "And we're starting to play a little better."
Oakland is 34-43 and Reddick's return adds a solid bat to a lineup (he owns a .316 average) which has overpowered recent competition. The A’s were 5-1 on the team’s just completed six-game road trip, averaging 7.7 RPG. Manaea last made a start back on June 13 (here in Oakland) when he was staked to a 10-2 lead against Texas but he couldn't finish the fifth inning because of a strained left forearm, costing him what surely would have been his third win of the season. Manaea is 2-4 with a 6.02 ERA in nine starts overall (team is 4-5).
The Giants can’t be happy about losing twice t home to their cross-bay rivals but at 49-30, San Francisco owns the NL’s second-best record and sits SIX games up on the Dodgers in the NL West. Jake Peavy (4-6, 5.22 ERA) gets the nod for the Giants and he’s faced the A’s four times in his career, posting a 2.96 ERA (he’s 2-1 and his team is 2-2). Peavy got off to an awful start in 2016 but over his last six starts, he’s 3-1 with a 1.91 ERA, as the Giants have won FIVE of his six outings. The bet here is the Giants exact some revenge after losing twice in San Francisco.
Dave Essler
Boston/Tampa Bay Over 7.5
First off Boston has tomorrow off and being the rubber game they'll want it pretty badly. They should get it, too, because they hammer Matt Moore, and the Rays' pen - as we know, has a 9.68 ERA over the last week. Against left handed pitchers the Rays are 12-6 to the over. Clearly the Rays know Price from his days in Tampa Bay and that also makes him a bit more vulnerable. One would question his confidence level after lasting less then three innings in his last start at Texas, and he CAN be prone to the long ball. Boston used Tazawa and Uehara the last two games, so I doubt they're available. Hirschbeck (HP umpire) has tended to be an "over" ump this season, although not so much in previous years - so almost no real or imagined impact there. Boston has allowed at least one HR in seven straight games - and until last night double digit hits in six straight games. Boston is 20-12 to the "over" on the road this season. The Rays have the Tigers coming in tomorrow so they're not packed for a flight and in no hurry to get this "over with". That's all I got. I can see a 6-4 Boston win - and may well use Boston in some form or fashion before all is said and done.
Kevin Rogers
Pirates at Mariners
Play: Pirates
The Pirates dropped to 2-12 in their last 14 road games following last night's loss at Seattle. Pittsburgh goes for the split of the two-game interleague set at Safeco Field tonight as rookie Jameson Taillon takes the mound. Taillon hasn't lasted past the fourth inning in each of his last two starts, but the right-hander tossed eight scoreless innings in a 4-0 victory at the Mets earlier this month. Wade Miley is making his first start since coming off the DL as the southpaw has been very up and down at home this season. Miley owns an ERA of 4.38, while the M's are 3-3 in those six starts. The Mariners own a dreadful 4-8 record in home series finales this season as I'll back the Pirates tonight.
Wunderdog
Connecticut vs. Phoenix
Pick: Connecticut +13.5
Connecticut is playing better than the first month of the campaign. They grabbed a win over San Antonio three games ago, while coming off an 80-73 loss at powerhouse Los Angeles as a +16 dog. Chiney Ogwumike had 16 points and eight rebounds, while Alyssa Thomas had 11 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. The Sun are 15-6-1 ATS against the Western Conference. Phoenix has a losing record and is just #10 in the WNBA in rebounding and assists, plus dead last in points allowed. There will be great intensity on both sides for this one, as Kelsey Bone was just traded by Connecticut for rookie Courtney Williams on Saturday, so this is the first meeting since the deal. Connecticut has covered six of the last seven in Phoenix and this shapes up as a close one.
STEVE JANUS
Yankees -1½ +121
Play Against - Road underdogs against a 1.5 run line. (Money Line =+165 to -135) (TEXAS) - hot hitting team - batting .315 or better over their last 5 games, playing on Wednesday. This system is 62-31 (67%) against the run line since 1997.
JACK JONES
Indians -1½ -127
The Cleveland Indians are the hottest team in baseball. They have now won 11 straight games coming in with each of their last eight victories coming by two runs or more. I believe both streaks continue tonight in Atlanta.
Danny Salazar has been the ace of Cleveland's staff this season. He's 9-3 with a 2.40 ERA and 1.147 WHIP with a whopping 99 strikeouts over 86 1/3 innings. He should shut down this light-hitting Braves' lineup that is hitting .236 and averaging 3.3 runs per game this season.
Atlanta's rotation is an absolute mess right now with several starters out with injury. That will force them to turn to Joel De La Cruz, who will be making his major league debut. De La Cruz is 1-3 with a 4.68 ERA at Triple-A Gwinett this season.
Atlanta is 7-22 at home this season, losing by an average of 2.0 runs per game. The Indians are 21-5 in their last 26 after scoring 5 runs or more in their previous game. Cleveland is 5-0 in Salazar's last five starts overall.
DAVE PRICE
San Francisco Giants +127
You have to think that the San Francisco Giants will be hungry for a victory tonight after losing the first two games of this series at home to their Bay Area-rival Oakland A's. With Jake Peavy pitching very well of late, I like their chances of getting a victory in Game 3 in Oakland tonight. Peavy is 2-0 with a 1.42 ERA and 1.000 WHIP in his last three starts. Now he'll be up against Sean Manaea, who shouldn't be this big of a favorite today considering he's 2-4 with a 6.02 ERA and 1.439 WHIP in 9 starts this year. Peavy is 2-1 with a 2.96 ERA and 0.988 WHIP in 4 lifetime starts vs. Oakland. The Giants are 21-3 (+18.9 Units) against the money line after batting .333 or better over a 3 game span over the last 2 seasons. The A's are 4-16 (-12.9 Units) against the money line after allowing 10 runs or more over the last 2 seasons.
TEDDY COVERS
Twins vs. White Sox
Play: Twins +103
To say that the Chicago White Sox have fallen on hard times is something of an understatement. A team that dominated the division in April is now sitting one game under .500 in fourth place in the AL Central . Starter Chris Sale has continued to dominate, a legit staff ace. But in Chicago’s last 35 games without Chris Sale as their starting pitcher, they’ve gone 9-26, costing their backers a small fortune.
James Shields next good start with the White Sox will be his first good start with the White Sox, a former ace who has completely fallen apart here in 2016. Shields was ineffective in San Diego, as the Padres went 2-9 in his 11 starts. And since arriving on the South Side, Shields has actually gotten worse.
In his first start on this field with the ChiSox, Shields needed 84 pitches to record six outs, while allowing ten of the 16 batters he faced to reach base. In his second start, he gave up seven runs and 13 baserunners in five innings. His last two starts haven’t been all that much better, a hurler with a 15.80 ERA and 3.07 WHIP while lasting only 13.2 innings in his four starts with Chicago.
It’s surely worth noting that current Twins have hammered Shields to the tune of a .326 batting average and an .888 OPS in 138 career at bats against him, with the likes of Brian Dozier, Joe Mauer and Eduardo Nunez battering him consistently.
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s extended run of Overs has finally come to an end thanks to – surprise, surprise – a solid run of pitching! The Twins last three opponents have combined to score only three runs. They notched their first shutout of the season last night, and their bullpen is finally rested off a combined 15 innings of work from Kyle Gibson and Tyler Duffey over the last two days.
Tonight’s starter, Ricky Nolasco, is no ace, but he’s quite capable of eating innings and keeping that bullpen fresh for the latter stages again this evening. With Minnesota showing a legitimate uptick over the past week (5-3 in their last eight games), they’re worth backing as underdogs this evening.
Harry Bondi
Pittsburgh & Seattle UNDER 8.5
Mariners have had a hard time scoring runs lately. The UNDER has hit in 7 of their last 10 games. Pirates are also scuffling at the plate lately and with Wade Miley taking the hill for Seattle and Pittsburgh countering with its best pitching prospect, Jameson Taillon, let's look for the UNDER to cash again. Past history is also with us as 9 of the last 10 inter-league meetings between the Mariners and Pirates have gone UNDER.
Bob Balfe
Brewers +105
The Brewers wouldn’t be that bad of a team if they could play all their games at home. The Dodgers obviously the better team here, but will call up Brock Stewart to make his first big league start. I am always in favor of going against young guys at even money during their first game. In most cases there are major growing pains before you get to be a household name pitcher.