STEPHEN NOVER
RL GAME OF THE YEAR
50 DIME Tampa Bay Rays -1.5
The Baltimore Orioles have the worst record in baseball at 29-63. The Orioles are especially bad in their brutal AL East Division, losing 31 of 40 division matchups.
Tampa Bay has defeated Baltimore in six of seven meetings, winning by an average of 3.1 runs per game.
The Rays own the best road mark in the majors and have decided edges everywhere in this matchup, including the starting pitching matchup of Matt Garza versus rookie Jacob Arrieta.
Garza is 5-3 with a 3.90 ERA on the road. He last pitched 10 days ago, shutting out Cleveland on one hit in six innings. Garza is 2-0 against the Orioles this season, holding them to two earned runs in 16 innings with 14 strikeouts.
Arrieta has been pitching better, but still struggles with his command. He has as many walks as strikeouts. He's also had problems pitching at home where his ERA is 6.06.
The Rays can't afford to take the Orioles lightly, trying to catch the Yankees. The Rays showed on Monday night that they wouldn't let down following a weekend series with the Yankees beating Baltimore by seven runs.
King Creole
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
Whenever you can find the Cy Young winner at an UNDERDOG price, you run (not walk) up to the betting window, And when we get him in SUPER form... with a great pedigree against tonight's opponent, it's a no-brainer.
First off, let's look at current batting trends for each team. Clayton Kershaw of the host Dodgers is a lefty.... and the GIANTS are MAULING the southpaws as of late. They are hitting 20 points higher against lefties than righties on the season... but that's nothing. In their last 10 games, the G-MEN are hitting a whopping .347 versus southpaws... while the Dogers are hitting only .236 vs righties. That's a difference of 110 points in batting average!
This is a series in which the VISITOR has dominated as of late. EACH of the last 4 games have gone to the road team, including last night's 5-2 Giant win in Game One of this series. And in the last 1.5 seasons, the visitor has won TWICE as many games (12) as the home teams (6).
Wanna talk STREAKS? You got it. The Dodgers come into tonight's Game Two on a big-time 5-game LOSING streak (and 1-6 in their lasy 7). Meanwhile, the confident Giants have gone 6-1 in their last 7 games. They took 3 out of 4 versus the Mets... took 2 out of 3 versus the Nats... and SWEPT the Brewers in 4 games (10-2 last 12 overall).
Tim Lincecum is on fire. He's off his BEST start of the year. In Thursday's first game off the All-Star break, he pitched a full 9-inning SHUTOUT of the mets in which he allowed only 6 total hits and had a K/BB ratio of 5-1. ERA in his last two starts is a microscopic 0.56. He;s gone 6-2 in his last 8 starts overall. He's been a better ROAD pitcher (than home) on the season... and he's done better in NIGHT starts compared to daytime action.
And finally, Lincecum has DOMINATED against his NL West rivals. He's gone 5-1 vs LA in the last 3 seasons. He's already faced the Dodgers once this year (IN Los Angeles). And in that game, he went 6 innings... allowed only 4 total hits... and ZERO earned runs in a 9-0 victory. His counterpart (Clayton Kershaw) looked shaky in his first post-All Star start. Kershaw lasted only 4 innings against the Cardinals on Thursday night, allowing 8 hits and 5 runs in a 7-1 loss. He's gone 1-4 on Tuesdays this season while Lincecum has gone a perfect 4-0.