Jimmy Boyd
Mariners -141
Seattle is showing some decent value here at home in Monday's series opener against the Astros. After a disappointing 2-6 start to the season, the Mariners have gone 7-3 over their last 10 to pull even at 9-9. Houston on the other hand has dropped 4 of their last 5 and are just 3-8 in their last 11. The Astros also find themselves in a difficult spot, as they are coming off a 12 inning game last night against the Red Sox at home and had to quickly jump on a plane to get to Seattle for this contest.
I look for the Astros to come out sluggish, which should allow the Mariners' Taijuan Walker to continue his impressive start to the season. Walker has a sensational 1.50 ERA and 0.944 WHIP over his first 3 starts. Houston will counter with Doug Fister, who has a 5.94 ERA and 1.380 WHIP in his first 3 outings and has yet to pitch past the 6th inning.
Houston is just 16-37 in their last 53 road games, 5-21 in their last 26 after scoring 5 or more runs in their previous game and 3-12 in their last 15 road games after losing 5 or 6 of their last 7 games. Seattle is 4-1 in their last 5 against a starter with a WHIP greater than 1.30, 16-5 in Walker's last 21 starts and 12-4 in his last 16 following a quality start last time out.
Will Rogers
Pittsburgh vs. Colorado
Pick: Over
The Rockies are sitting second in the AL West with a 9-9 record, but they are coming off a home series versus the Dodgers which saw them lose two of three games. We saw 22 runs scored in the series finale last night, and I expect another slugfest in Game 1 versus Pittsburgh tonight.
Here are my keys to the game:
1. Pitching - Jeff Locke will be on the mound for the visitors, and he's off to a rocky start. Locke (0-2, 7.24 ERA) was torched for eight runs on 11 hits over just three innings at "pitcher friendly" PETCO in his last start. He's 0-1 with a 5.00 ERA in his last three starts at Coors Field, and this looks like a tough spot for the struggling southpaw.
2. Batter vs. Pitcher - Nolan Arenado is ranked near the top of the major leagues again in 2016 with seven home runs and 17 RBIs so far. He's owned Locke, batting .545 lifetime against the lefty.
3. X-Factor - The Rockies bullpen is pretty bad, only Cincinnati has a higher ERA by reliever.
Brian Hay
Seattle -155
Seattle is off to a decent 9-9 start to the season. The Mariners will start Taijuan Walker tonight against Houston. Walker comes in with a 1.50 ERA and 0.94 WHIP in his first three starts of the season - all against teams that are over the .500 mark right now. He has only walked two batters over his 18 innings of work and his groundball rate has improved substantially from 39% to 56%. The Houston Astros are off to a horrible 6-13 start this season. Houston goes with Doug Fister today as they look to turn things around. Fister owns an ugly 5.94 ERA in his first three outings and is only striking out 4.9 batters per nine innings. Going with hot pitchers today.