Betting news, trends, odds and predictions from various handicappers and websites for Monday 7/15/19
Monday's List of 13: Wrapping up a sports weekend…….
13) As I type this, I’m watching ESPN2’s broadcast of the World Series of Poker final table, which is a half hour delayed; they’re down to six players right now. Winner gets $10M, guy who was 9th got $1M, so they’re playing for lot of money.
For some reason, ESPN continues to employ Normad Chad as a poker analyst, possibly the least funny person ever on TV, especially because he thinks he is funny.
12) One baseball thing I’m waiting for: a team gets hosed on an instant replay review. The manager runs over, grabs the headphones out of that bag they’re in and berates the umpire in New York City who made the call against his team.
MLB needs to announce which umpires are in New York reviewing plays for each game.
11) Minnesota’s Max Kepler has homered in five straight at-bats against Cleveland’s Trevor Bauer, which is a new MLB record. Two batters had the previous record, homering four times in a row vs the same pitcher, back in 2004 and 1964.
10) Max Scherzer leads MLB in swinging strike %age, at 17.1%. He also leads in first-pitch strike %age, at 71.7%.
9) Brad Powers’ toughest college football schedules this year:
South Carolina, Auburn, USC, Stanford
8) Mike Trout was removed from Sunday’s game in the 2nd inning with right calf tightness. He is considered day-to-day.
7) Baseball stuff:
— A’s acquired P Homer Bailey from Kansas City for a minor league SS.
— Angels’ C Jonathan Lucroy is expected to miss another two weeks (concussion).
6) Weather forecast in Northern Ireland for next week’s British Open golf tournament is rain every day. Should be a fun week for the caddies.
5) There were 422 points played in the Federer-Djokovic match at Wimbledon Sunday; 35 of them were aces. Lot of people on social media were suggesting it was one of the best matches ever played.
4) Fantasy baseball rant: It is really frustrating to have pitchers on teams that suck; none of my pitchers this year are on good teams. Miami, the Mets, Detroit, San Francisco, even San Diego is below .500 now. Good pitchers struggle to win with lousy defensive support.
Sandy Alcantara pitched pretty well for the Marlins Sunday, but their infield was AWFUL- Mets had five infield hits, mixed in with a couple errors and other mental miscues. They looked like they were out late in South Beach Saturday night. Alcantara deserved better.
3) ESPN hired former NFL QB Ryan Leaf as a college football analyst, as Leaf continues his comeback from personal problems that derailed his playing career.
Leaf was the #2 overall NFL draft pick for the San Diego Chargers in 1998 and worked for the Pac-12 Network last year- he has been co-hosting a show on SiriusXM’s Pac-12 channel.
He has has battled drug addiction and served time in prison, so good for him for seemingly overcoming those demons. Look forward to learning from him this fall.
2) Cincinnati Reds hit five triples in Saturday’s game, the first time the Reds did that since June of 1929. Coors Field is a lot more spacious than the Reds’ home ballpark.
1) SEC football media days start today; oddly entertaining TV, with lot of interviews with people not really saying very much. It was much better when Les Miles was at LSU, though.