SPORTS WAGERS
Baltimore +121 over TEXAS
The Orioles have won the first two games of this series and there’s no reason they can’t make it a sweep with this favorable pitching match-up. Chris Tillman is 20-6 since the start of last season. He’s quietly found his way out of the woods, guided by velocity gains, newfound control and great progress v lefties. MLB xERA doesn't buy that he's a sub-4.00 ERA pitcher just yet, but the skills say he's right on the cusp. Tillman is also one of the rare pitchers whose skills actually improve the more times he goes through lineups so if the Rangers don’t get to him in the first two innings, his chances of picking up a win increase dramatically. Martin Perez has started just six games for the Rangers this year. Three of those have been quality and three have been poor. Perez went 1-4 with a 5.45 ERA in 38 innings last season for Texas. This one-time top prospect has seen his star diminish, along with his strikeout rate over the past two years with initial trial in Texas going about as poorly as you'd expect from a kid with a control problems. He's still young and left-handed, so he'll get plenty of chances but everything in his profile from walks to strikeouts to groundball rate to line-drive rate are all trending the wrong way. Growing pains along with several red flags in Perez’s profile tell us that Perez is far too risky to trust as the chalk.
L.A. ANGELS +111 over Oakland
The A’s belted out three hits yesterday en route to a 2-0 loss. Oakland has now dropped the first two games of this series and has scored one run. Over the past 10 games, the A’s are batting .194. Over that span they’ve scored a major league low 26 times and have a major league low 62 hits. This is nothing new. The A’s have been living a charmed life the entire season with one of the weakest hitting line-ups that this league has seen in a long time. The A’s are favored here because Bartolo Colon is on the hill with his 12-3 record and 2.93 ERA. Like the team he pitches for, Colon has been all smoke and mirrors and it simply cannot last over an entire season. Colon has insane command but his strikeout rate is far from impressive. Colon basically uses one pitch, a fastball that tops out at 91 MPH that he throws 85% of the time. Colon uses his changeup 6% and a slider 9%. Most one-pitch pitchers use a nasty slider, like Derek Lowe did for years but we’ve never seen a pitcher have success like Colon has by throwing a fastball 17 times every 20 pitches. Colon’s line-drive rate over his past three starts was 38% and that’s the highest mark of any pitcher in the majors over a three-game stretch this year. Colon’s luck is going to run out very soon and if he wins here, good for him but his chances of getting destroyed are much better. The A’s favored on the road here is completely incorrect. Jerome Williams has started just 12 games this year and has appeared in 23. He doesn’t have impressive numbers but he’s certainly capable of throwing a good game, as he has many times in his career. Williams spent the 1st half in both the rotation and pen, where he displayed respectable skills and mediocre results. His groundball % is solid (52%), and command uptick intriguing but future role is unclear and with long history of medicocrity, taking another step up at his age is unlikely. However, this isn’t about backing Williams. This one is all about taking back a tag against two imposters, the Oakland A’s and Bartolo Colon, as not even Chris Angel could continue to make this illusion work.
Tampa Bay +107 over TORONTO
The Jays have lost the first two games of this series but it’s the way they lost that is troubling. Down 4-2 in the eighth inning yesterday, Tampa issued three consecutive walks to load the bases with none out. The Blue Jays did not score and that’s just one example of the many opportunities they’ve had over the past couple of days. Now 0-2 to start the second half, picking up a win today is going to be extremely difficult for Toronto against Chris Archer. Archer is a hard throwing righty with swing-and-miss stuff that has posted some of the best skills in the league over his last five starts. Over that span, Archer is 3-0 with a 1.69 ERA, a BB/K split of 7/22 in 32 frames, an outstanding groundball/line-drive/flyball profile of 49%/15%/36% and a WHIP of 0.88. This kid is just getting better and is another one of those starting pitching studs in the Rays system. Tampa remains one of the hottest teams in baseball and now we get a tag with one of the hottest starters too. R.A Dickey redefined the knuckleball game last season, adding speed to a pitch that normally relies on deception, and parlaying that into a career year. But so far this season, it seems batters are catching on. Dickey's been unable to match 2012's success for a variety of reasons. The velocity on Dickey's "fast knuckleball" is down from 83 mph to 81, likely contributing to the strikeout rate loss. It's still above average for a knuckler, though. His groundball rate continues to deteriorate, a skill he'll need to regain if his K’s continue to decline. His control has also fallen by the wayside, resulting in limited xERA potential. Rogers Centre is notoriously harsh on pitchers' ERAs, and Dickey is no exception (5.83 home ERA). Dickey's transformation from finesse to "power" pitcher looks to be short-lived, which would be fine if control and groundball were along for the ride. Alas, they've both regressed further, hindering his chance for recovery. Let someone else believe the “buy low” hype, as Dickey remains a strong fade.