Wednesday's Best MLB Bets
Colorado Rockies at Milwaukee Brewers (-185, 8)
Even though the Milwaukee Brewers are cruising into the playoffs, some feel that they’ve done most of their work against the lesser teams in the bigs and haven’t proven their worth against the NL's elite.
It’s a notion manager Doug Melvin takes issue with.
"It depends when you played them," Melvin told reporters. "Were they winning teams when you played them? Pittsburgh was a winning team earlier in the year when we played them. Florida was a winning team when we played them. Cincinnati was winning earlier in the season. The good teams are separating themselves from the bad teams. I think that's what's happening."
The Brewers are definitely in a different class from the Rockies, but Kevin Millwood has been pretty good lately. Not good enough to entice us to make a Rockies wager, but we do like the under.
Pick: Under
San Diego Padres at San Francisco Giants (-160, 5.5)
While the Giants can probably kiss the NL West division title goodbye, they still have an outside shot at the wild card – albeit a very outside shot.
At this point, many have given up on the Giants heading back to the World Series and are already thinking ahead to the offseason and even that is causing some concern.
Pablo Sandoval lost a ton of weight last offseason, but some are speculating that he’s fallen off the wagon a bit as the season has rolled along. The slugger has also said he plans to take a full month off after the season is over, which has manager Bruce Bochy worried.
“This month he’s planning on taking has to be done the right way,” Bochy told the Mercury News. “We’ll keep an eye on him. He knows how important it is to keep the weight off. He’s a different player, offensively and defensively.”
To us, he doesn’t look all that out of shape and we don’t think the Giants are the sort of team to roll over. We’ll eat the chalk with Tim Lincecum starting.
Pick: Giants
Wednesday's Streaking and Slumping Starting Pitchers
Streaking
Roy Halladay, Philadelphia Phillies (17-5, 2.44 ERA)
Halladay is surging down the stretch as he’s in the mix for another Cy Young award as his club gets ready for another postseason run. Even though the Phillies have won just two of his last five starts, his numbers have held strong. He has allowed just nine earned runs over his last six trips to the hill, including last week's 5-3 win over Milwaukee that saw him go eight innings while yielding one run as he struck out nine.
Daniel Hudson, Arizona Diamondbacks (16-9, 3.41 ERA)
Hudson is coming off his third complete game of the season on Friday when he allowed five hits and one earned run to push the Diamondbacks to a 3-2 win over the Padres. He has now yielded only four runs over his last four starts, striking out 26 batters over that span.
Slumping
John Lackey, Boston Red Sox (12-12, 6.36 ERA)
Lackey took a comebacker off the leg in his last start, but expects to be OK to go Wednesday against the Blue Jays. He has allowed 11 runs over his last eight innings on the mound and is looking to snap a three-game losing skid. Lackey has walked at least three batters in each of his last five starts and owns the worst ERA of his career.
Rich Harden, Oakland Athletics (4-2, 4.74 ERA)
Harden’s strikeout numbers are still pretty impressive with 22 punch-outs in his last three games, but the Athletics have lost each of those contests. That’s partly because Harden has allowed 13 combined runs over that span including five home runs. He gave up three runs to the Royals in the first inning of his last start and was pulled after allowing four runs in five innings even though he struck out 10.
Texas Rangers Collide With Cleveland Indians
By: Willie Bee
Huff and Holland sounds like the name of a law firm or maybe a snuff film set in Amsterdam. Instead, it's the Wednesday pitching matchup in Texas between the Rangers and Cleveland Indians.
The middle of this 3-game set will be featured in the first of an ESPN doubleheader starting at 7:00 p.m. (ET). A pair of lefties square off on the mound, David Huff for the Indians and the Rangers' Derek Holland.
Things are suddenly getting exciting in the AL West. Texas entered the series with a 3-game lead over the Angels in the division standings, and with nine of their final 12 games following this series on the road – including the last three of the season in Anaheim – the Rangers know they're just a short stumble away from being caught.
This series gets underway Tuesday evening when Justin Masterson and Matt Harrison are the initial mound duel. Texas was priced at -160 on the MLB odds board with the results still pending.
It will be just the second career start for Huff (2-5, 3.05) against the Rangers, and he sure hopes it goes like the first one. He tossed a complete game 4-hitter at home over Texas in April 2010, one mistake pitch to Michael Young that was negated by one mistake pitch from Harrison a few innings later.
Huff has started September with losses on the road at Kansas City and Chicago, allowing seven earned runs in the 12 1/3 combined innings. The Tribe has dropped his last four assignments away from Cleveland, Huff's only winning road start this campaign coming in his first outing of 2011 in Minnesota on July 18.
Holland (16-13, 4.12) was lit up by the Tribe in this ballpark on Aug. 5, punched out before the end of the second inning when Cleveland held a 6-2 advantage. Texas battled back for an 8-7 win in 12 innings to cash on a -150 money line.
The other time Holland pitched against the Tribe this year season resulted in a complete-game shutout June 4 in Cleveland. It was his first of four shutouts on the season, part of this young southpaw's 2011 repertoire that has been very, very good, and very, very bad at times.
Holland has 17 quality starts in 2011, above average for MLB hurlers about to make their 30th trip to the mound. Of the 12 starts that lacked quality, 11 have been real shellings. Holland's ERA in those 48 1/3 innings is over 10; his ERA in the 18 'non-shellings' is very stingy 1.85.
Texas was expected to see two players return from the disabled list in time for the start of this series. Outfielder Nelson Cruz (hamstring) and reliever Darren O'Day (shoulder) have both been missing since late-August.
The Rangers started Tuesday with a 6-1 lead in the season series vs. the Indians. They swept four at Cleveland in early-June and took two of three here at home in August. The 'over' prevailed in two of the three at Rangers Ballpark.
This game is being moved up an hour from regular start times at Rangers Ballpark, so there's a chance it's still 100ºF at first pitch, at least the upper 90s and an 8-12 mph breeze coming from the SW (RF corner to LF corner).