Red Dog Sports
Los Angeles at Phoenix
Play: Under 175.5
This game is being played at 11am in Phoenix for television. The Mercury will celebrate last year's title at the start of the game. Both teams have new points guards (Cappie Pondexter is gone for the Mercury; Tisha Pinicheiro starts for LA after Sacramento folds).
Phoenix is a fast paced team but the Sparks were the only team to have more unders than overs last year and are led by Candace Parker, who had a down year last season after having a child. Lisa Leslie retired too.
Look for a game in the 160's that goes under on Saturday afternoon.
Stan Lisowski
FLORIDA
Marlins are 9-5 in divisional play. Mets are 4-10 on the road with the host team standing 24-12 in their games this season. NY starter Maine has a 7.11 ERA pitching on the road.
GREG SHAKER
Philadelphia Phillies +100
The Brewers continue to have a lot of problems with a lot of things and one of those just happens to be something that I consider to be a very important thing. The Bullpen. Milwaukee's has been Iffy all year and getting worse by the moment with their last 10 games producing an ERA of near 7 runs. Philly's Pen has been masterfull all year, ranked very high and their last 10 games have produced an ERA of just 1.69. That gives us the advantage in the late innings especially when you consider that the Brewers second line throwers must be Dead Tired with Brewer starters failing miserably of late. Milwaukee can score runs but so can these Phils, and they are doing that a lot lately. They do continue to hit lefties well. These two teams are going different directions right now and let's face it, with a 4-12 home mark, is there a HFC for the home team today? Forget the starters here. It's just not that important as most always is the case.
Minnesota Twins/NY Yankees Over 9
Well this certainly looks like a fair number right? Afterall, both of these throwers today have superior stats this year with ERA's in the low 2''s and very good Whips. But these two squads do and have hit lefties with vengence this year, both at or over the .300 mark and this park has been kind to hitters in this situation with both NYY and visitors hitting well over the .300 mark here. Games at the Bronx have for the most part produced a lot of runs, including 3 of 4 that Pettitte has thrown. While both pitchers have good career stats verses the teams they will face today, we do have a very good wind situation forming for this game with zippy air flow out to right and left to right. I can certainly see a few over the board today and with this opening line of 9.5 dropping downward to it's current level, My Model has 9 or more 58.2% of the time. Good enough for me. Please note that you can get 8.5 -120 at a few books right now and Under Money keeps coming in to the books.
Craig Trapp
New York Mets vs. Florida Marlins
Play: Florida Marlins
The Marlins have owned the NYM this season going 4-1 including a blowout win in game 1 last night. The Mets might be the worst team at the dish this year, even worse for them is Wright is in one of the worst hitting slumps of his career. Another positive is Robertson starts for FLA and he has been better than expected. In his career starts verse NYM he is 1-0 with a 2.13 ERA in two starts. Maine goes for NYM and he has improved a little but still has a 5 plus ERA. FLA plays much better at home and the METS are the worst away team going 4-10 thus far. Enjoy this very easy winner!
Jr. O'Donnell
Los Angels/Oakland A's Under 8.5
Take a real hard look at the "Total" tonight as the Oakland A's are really struggling to plate some runs right now. They are at a terrible 10%, that's right 10% with runners in scoring position the last few games. The Los Angels E. Santana is 10-2 with a 1.45 ERA in 15 games vs the Athletics. On the flip side, the A's hurler Duchscherer is 100% healthy tonight and has fared well in his career vs these Los Angels. How about "6-0" with a super nice 1.44 ERA and he has held the Angels to a. 196 BAA.
Insider Angles
Tim Lincecum is a back-to-back Cy Young Winner with good reason, and he is picking up right where he left off this year. Lincecum has a fantastic 1.86 ERA and 0.91 WHIP with 64 strikeouts in 48.1 innings, once again ranking among the league leaders in all three categories. He is also a perfect seven for seven in Quality Starts, and he has tossed 14 scoreless innings in his last two starts vs. the Astros while allowing only seven hits and posting 16 strikeouts!
Not to be outdone, Roy Oswalt has rediscovered his All-Star form this year, as he has a 2.62 ERA and 1.10 WHIP while also going a perfect seven for seven in Quality Starts. He has posted Quality Starts in his last four appearances vs. San Francisco, including one start this year where he allowed three runs in six innings. Oswalt may hot have a many strikeouts as Lincecum, but his ratio is just as good, with 45 strikeouts vs. only 13 walks.
Finally, not that there stud pitchers need any help, but these are two of the weakest offenses in the league, especially vs. right-handed pitching. This is further evidenced by the last 10 games for each team, where Houston is batting .219 vs. right-handed pitchers and the Giants are hitting .214 vs. righties.
Not surprisingly, the Under is a wallet filling 11-1-1 in the last 13 San Francisco home games and 10-3-1 in the last 14 Astros road games. Even with this extremely low posted total, look for those trends to continue here.
Pick: Astros/Giants Under 6.5