Thursday's Best MLB Bets
New York Yankees at Baltimore Orioles (175, 10)
You knew the Yanks wanted to come out with a big game after their 9/11 ceremony Wednesday afternoon, but they just didn’t have anything left in the tank after Tuesday’s debacle.
They endured a four-hour rain delay on Tuesday and the opening pitch wasn’t thrown out until after 11 p.m. ET. So, Yanks manager Joe Girardi rested a pile of his regulars Wednesday afternoon and New York supporters ended up taking it on the chin with a 5-4, 10-inning loss.
"We gave them a lot of their runs today. That's the bottom line, and that's why we lost this game," Girardi said. "Even when our regulars aren't in there, our defense has been pretty good. Today it wasn't. I don't know if it was the conditions. I don't know if it was fatigue. I don't know what it was, but it really cost us the game."
Now the Yanks need to hop on plane to Baltimore for another game against the Orioles Thursday afternoon. They might need Ivan Nova to be his usual dominant self.
Pick: Yankees
Kansas City Royals at Seattle Mariners (100, 8)
The Royals’ offense was rolling in their previous series against the A’s. That is, it was rolling until it was nearly no-hit by Guillermo Moscoso.
The 27-year-old came four outs away from a no-no in only the 18th start of his career in a 7-0 victory over Kansas City.
“We’ve been swinging the bats really well,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “You kind of tip your cap to the dude. I know that’s a bogus statement because everyone says it when they get their (backside) whupped in that kind of fashion. But that frickin’ kid threw a darn good game. That’s just the way it is.”
Luckily for the Royals, they should have a good chance to get their bats going again Thursday as they head to Seattle.
The Mariners send Jason Vargas, who has allowed 21 earned runs over his last four starts, to the hill for Game 1. We’ll support the Royals to bounce back.
Pick: Royals
Thursday's Streaking and Slumping Starting Pitchers
Streaking
Ian Kennedy, Arizona Diamondbacks (18-4, 2.96 ERA)
If nothing else, Kennedy deserves some consideration for the NL Cy Young award. He’s allowed only two runs over his last three starts and the rest of his numbers obviously speak for themselves.
"If he had a different name on his back - if he was known throughout baseball like the Roy Halladays and Cliff Lees and all those guys - if they were doing what (Kennedy) is doing, they'd be jumping on their back and saying how good they are,” teammate Chris Young told reporters. I think he deserves the same recognition."
Ivan Nova, New York Yankees (15-4, 3.89 ERA)
There will be good reason why the Yanks are big road favorites again Thursday. Nova hasn’t lost a game since June 4 and has allowed more than four runs in an outing only twice this season. He has given up five earned runs over his last three trips to the hill and hasn’t yielded a home run over that span. New York has won each of his last 12 outings.
“I’m not surprised,” Nova said. “I know what I can do. It don’t stop here. I got like four more starts, I think. I have to keep hungry.”
Slumping
Jason Vargas, Seattle Mariners (7-13, 4.59 ERA)
This year can’t end fast enough for the 28-year-old Vargas. He is just 1-7 with a 6.49 ERA in his last 11 starts and allowed the A’s to bat around in the third inning of his last start. Vargas ended up allowing four earned runs in five innings while walking five in a 9-2 loss.
"The big inning has been killing me, it's been killing the team," said Vargas. "The fact of the matter is I haven't been very good. The season's kind of winding down and I gotta figure it out pretty quick."
Chad Billingsley, Los Angeles Dodgers (10-10, 4.15 ERA)
Billingsley hasn’t recorded a win in a month, but the Dodgers have bailed him out of his last two starts. He gave up three earned runs on nine hits over four
innings, while also walking four in an 8-6 win over Atlanta last Friday. Billingsley recently said he’s having problems with his mechanics and isn’t sure what the problem is yet.
NY Mets Host Braves In Hurricane Doubleheader
By: Willie Bee
Hurricane Irene initially caused the problem and leftovers from Tropical Storm Lee may compound the issue.
There's a doubleheader on tap at Citi Field Thursday where the New York Mets host the Atlanta Braves on a day originally scheduled to be a break for both clubs. The games were made necessary when Irene wiped out most of a weekend set near the end of August.
Mother Nature may try and interfere again with a 70 percent chance of thundershowers in Thursday's forecast for Queens. Afternoon highs are barely going to creep into the 70s.
Atlanta probably wishes the series in Philadelphia this week had been knocked out by inclement weather. The Braves dropped the first two games of the set and went into Wednesday's finale as 120 underdogs to Roy Oswalt and the Phils.
The good news is Atlanta will have at least a 6.5-game lead in the National League Wild Card race when this doubleheader begins. The bad news is the Braves are sliding into a rut at the wrong time of the season, losing four of their last five before Wednesday's game.
Game 1 of Thursday's twinbill (4:10 p.m. ET) has a couple of rookies set to start against each other according to the clubs' MLB.com sites. Julio Teheran (0-2, 5.19) will make his third MLB start for Atlanta against New York's Chris Schwinden, who is making his major league debut.
Teheran is Atlanta's next great pitching prospect after tearing up the International League this season (15-3, 2.55 ERA). The 20-year-old Colombian filled in briefly for the parent club in May, both of his assignments coming on the road (Philadelphia and Arizona), both ending in defeat for the Braves and Teheran failing to last through five full innings in either game.
Schwinden started the year in Double-A before an early promotion to the Triple-A Buffalo squad, also in the International League. The 43rd-round draft pick from 2008 made 26 starts for Buffalo with an 8-8 record and 3.95 ERA.
Thursday's nightcap is currently listed for a 7:30 p.m. (ET) first pitch and also will feature a pair of young hurlers in lefty Mike Minor (8-3, 4.09) for the Braves and Dillon Gee (15-8, 4.48) for the Mets.
It's a rematch of an Aug. 7 game at Citi Field in which neither pitched well and Atlanta won 6-5 getting +105 on the MLB odds. Minor came out in the sixth after allowing four of New York's runs, and Gee left after the fifth having been charged with five Braves runners coming plateward.
The teams enter the doubleheader with New York owning a slight 7-6 advantage in head-to-head meetings this season. They will meet once more in a little more than a week for three games in Atlanta. 'Under' bettors have gone home happy in seven of the meetings so far, with one 'push, ' but the 'over' has cashed four of the seven in New York.
The Mets remain at home this weekend for three games against the Cubs, the series concluding with the ESPN Sunday Night encounter that we will preview here at Don Best Sports. Atlanta continues a tough weeklong trek away from home with three in St. Louis.
Cleveland Indians At White Sox Preview
By: Adam Markowitz
The Detroit Tigers are red hot right now and starting to pull away from the rest of the field in the AL Central. The two teams that are trying to run them down will meet in MLB betting action starting on Thursday night for the first of a four-game set when the Cleveland Indians face off with the Chicago White Sox.
The first pitch from US Cellular Field is slated for 8:10 p.m. (ET), and baseball betting aficionados can catch the game live on the MLB Network and Comcast Sports.
The Tribe kept themselves in the pennant race through the month of July thanks to the fact they played so well at home. However, the Indians fell out of things just a bit thanks to a shoddy road record that sits at 31-37 coming into play this weekend, and without a massive turnaround in a hurry, they'll miss the postseason and barely challenge the .500 mark.
Cleveland isn't helped by the fact that it is just 4-13 over the course of the last 17 games against the White Sox, including a 3-6 mark this season. If there's good news though, it's that the Indians took two out of three here in the Windy City just a few weeks ago in a series that really damaged Chicago's chances of making the playoffs.
For just the eighth time this year, southpaw David Huff is going to take the mound for Cleveland. Thursday's starter is just 2-3 despite a 2.81 ERA. However, this is a very small sample set that we're looking at, and we have to remember that this is still a man with a 5.44 ERA for his career.
Huff has allowed five runs in two of his last three starts, both of which came on the road. He hasn't survived longer than six innings in a game since July 18, which is only going to further tax a Cleveland bullpen that just threw 6 2/3-innings on Tuesday night when Fausto Carmona was blown up by the aforementioned Tigers.
Chicago has the opposite problem that Cleveland does in that the White Sox never quite figured out how to play well in front of their own crowd at US Cellular Field. The Pale Hose are only 31-37 at home on the campaign, and even though they are two games above .500, it doesn't look good for them running down Detroit.
Manager Ozzie Guillen knows that he is probably in his last few weeks managing this team, and he is just hoping that some magic can come out of some of his starting pitchers to keep his squad in the chase until the dying days of the season.
On Thursday, it'll be up to the inconsistent Gavin Floyd to get the job done. Floyd is 12-10 with a 4.45 ERA, but we know that he has the ability to mix great games with not-so-great outings.
The righty hasn't been beaten in a game since August 3, but in games in which he didn't get the win of late, he has allowed four runs in five innings, five runs in 5 2/3-innings, 10 runs in 2 1/3-innings, and seven runs in 3 2/3-innings.
For whatever reason though, the bats are helping out Floyd tremendously. He has gotten at least eight runs of support in four straight starts. Needless to say, Chicago is 3-1 in those outings.
Mother Nature doesn't have a fantastic night in store for baseball at "The Cell." Rain is expected in the forecast, and winds could be as high as 25-30 mph out of the northeast, blowing out to right field.