Brad Wilton
My comp play winner for Saturday is the Giants and Padres to play Over the total at Petco Park.
San Francisco has played 5 games this year, and ALL 5 of them have landed Over the total. Last night's game was Over the total by the top of the 6th inning!
San Diego has now played Over the total in 3 of their 5 games this young season, and it is time for Opening Day starter Jhoulys Chacin to make his second start. In his first at Dodgers Stadium, Chacin worked just over 3 innings and allowed 9 runs on 8 hits, including allowing a pair of homers!
In his first start of the season, Madison Bumgarner smoked a pair of homers to help his cause in a 6-5 win over Arizona. That start landed Over the total.
You ride the streak until it ends, and I don't see it ending on Saturday night.
Giants and Padres Over the total once again.
4* SAN FRANCISCO-SAN DIEGO OVER
Jack Brayman
My free play is on the Arizona Diamondbacks, over the Cleveland Indians in Interleague play. The Snakes have won three in a row, and roll in with an impressive 4-1 mark.
They should ride the momentum from last night's series-opening win. Arizona erased a 3-0 deficit after two innings, to come from behind for a 7-3 win. The Diamondbacks erupted for seven runs in the fourth and fifth innings.
They have overcome three-run deficits three times and a two-run deficit once, showing resiliency early on this season.
I won't list the pitchers here, as my money is on Arizona's momentum getting it done against the Tribe.
2* DIAMONDBACKS
Teddy Davis
Milwaukee at Philadelphia
Play: Milwaukee -6½
I don't mind the Bucks here tonight against the Sixers as Philly has made it clear they are throwing in the towel for the season. They have lost 5 straight and 6 of 7. Even though the Bucks are in the 6th seed they still haven't clinched a playoff spot. You know the effort will be on a all time high for them given those circumstances. Lay the points with the young Bucks!
Bruce Marshall
Islanders / Devils Under 5
The Islanders are still mathematically alive to make the playoffs and will be finishing this game well before Toronto's vs. Pittsburgh, so the Isles can stay temporarily alive with a win. But what we've been getting the past week from New York is exceptional work in goal from vet keeper Jaroslav Halak, who has allowed just four goals total in four straight Islander wins, and tonight faces a feeble New Jersey offense that ranks 28th in scoring (2.2. goals pg).
Wunderdog
Boston @ Detroit T
Pick: Detroit -111
If you're going to get the Boston Red Sox, it may be more likely that your best chance will be now. The Red Sox have solid pitching at the top of the rotation, but become suspect deeper into it. The bats are not clicking yet but they will at some point come to life. Jordan Zimmermann was a fast starter last season as he was 5-0 in April with a microscopic 0.55 ERA, and was named AL Pitcher of the Month for April. The jury is still out on Eduardo Rodriguez, Boston's starter, as he is .500 over his brief career, pitching on a winning team. The Red Sox let one get away in the opener with their bullpen yielding a pair of eighth inning runs, so they may be emotionally flat here after blowing a win. The Tigers have edge on the hill, and some mojo at home.
Chris Jordan
My free winner is on the streaking Baltimore Orioles, who have won three in a row and have their No. 1 guy on the hill for this Saturday night sesh against the New York Yankees.
Now I am not listing Kevin Gausman, but I surely don't mind he is on the hill tonight, even though he's making his second start in just the fourth game of the season.
Gausman is stepping in for injured Chris Tillman, after taking no-decision in the season-opener. The fire-baller is 6-3 with a 1.92 career ERA versus New York lifetime.
But that's not the story. It's that Baltimore is playing well overall and carries a wealth of momentum into this game. The Yankees won't be able to match the overall effort the Orioles are bringing right now.
2* ROCKIES
Jack Brayman
My free play is on the Arizona Diamondbacks, over the Cleveland Indians in Interleague play. The Snakes have won three in a row, and roll in with an impressive 4-1 mark.
They should ride the momentum from last night's series-opening win. Arizona erased a 3-0 deficit after two innings, to come from behind for a 7-3 win. The Diamondbacks erupted for seven runs in the fourth and fifth innings.
They have overcome three-run deficits three times and a two-run deficit once, showing resiliency early on this season.
I won't list the pitchers here, as my money is on Arizona's momentum getting it done against the Tribe.
2* DIAMONDBACKS
Chip Chirimbes
Jazz vs. Blazers
Play: Jazz +1
With three games to go and all at home the Trailblazers hold a one-game lead over Denver for the final playoff spot in the West. Portland has been playing well winning 15 of their last 20 while Utah has a one-game lead over the L.A. Clippers for the 4th seed and a home playoff series. The Jazz are 2-1 against the Blazers including a 106-87 home win Tuesday.
Jack Jones
Blue Jays +111
The Toronto Blue Jays are showing solid value as road underdogs to the Tampa Bay Rays today. After a 1-3 start to the season, the Blue Jays will be motivated for a win here tonight, and they should get it due to their advantage on the mound.
Aaron Sanchez makes his season debut after an impressive 2016 season in which he carried a 3.00 ERA and was a Cy Young contender. He's 1-1 with a 1.86 ERA in three career starts against Tampa Bay, including 1-0 with a 0.64 ERA in two starts against them last year, allowing one earned run in 14 innings.
Chris Archer is coming off an awful 2016 campaign in which he went 9-19 with a 4.02 ERA and 1.242 WHIP in 33 starts. He gave up a whopping 30 homers last year, and the Blue Jays are one of the best home run-hitting teams in baseball.
The Blue Jays are 4-0 in Sanchez's last four starts. Toronto is 9-3 in Sanchez's last 12 starts vs. AL East opponents. The Rays are 3-10 in Archer's last 13 home starts. Tampa Bay is 8-20 in Archer's last 28 starts vs. AL East foes.
Dave Price
Bulls -3
The Chicago Bulls only lead the Miami Heat by one game and are tied with the Indiana Pacers in terms of getting one of the final two playoff spots. The hunger to make the postseason has led to the Bulls going 5-1 in their last 6 games overall. They have also gone 8-3 ATS in their last 11 games dating back further. They clearly want to get in, and now the worst team in the NBA in the Brooklyn Nets stands in their way tonight. This is a very generous price for the Bulls only laying 3 points given the situation. The Bulls are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 road games. The road team is 6-1 ATS in the last 7 meetings. The Bulls are 4-0 ATS in their last 4 trips to Brooklyn.
RJ Robbins
Milwaukee vs. Philadelphia
Play: Over 208.5
These two teams have just 3 games left to finish out the Regular season. The 76'ers are looking towards the Draft and a bright future in years ahead. Let's face it they are playing out the season. While the Bucks should make the play offs. Their opponent is yet to be determine. Don't look for much defense to be played tonight The last 5 games the Bucks are giving up an average of 106 points while the 76'ers are giving up 115! The last 5 match ups between these two teams the over is 4-1. The Bucks this season are 11-3 over on Saturday games.
SPORTS WAGERS
Minnesota +109 over CHICAGO
Miguel Gonzalez started 15 games in 2012 and has started 23 games or more every year since. He’s also worked out of the pen. Overall, Gonzalez has 712 major league innings of experience with a career ERA of 3.80. However, his career xERA is 4.88 and we’d be paying more attention to that than anything else you see on paper. Last year, Gonzalez went 5-8 with a 3.73 ERA for the South Side. He spent most of April in AAA and then a 4-week DL trip followed in Aug-Sept for a groin strain. His skills had been barely roster-worthy until that 2nd half and we’ve never been believers anyway. His control is not supported by his first-pitch strike rate and his hr/f is not supported by his high 43% fly-ball rate. The planets of random luck aligned for three of his four years so far (2015 his ERA was 4.91); it was a gift. At age 33 and with weak skills, it won't keep giving.
The South Side is favored here because the Twins have a rookie going. That’s funny because the Twins had the worst pitching staff in the majors last year by a wide margin so any new face is a welcomed sight to every player (and coach) in that Twinkies dugout. By the way, Minnesota is now 4-0.
The Twins acquired Adalberto Mejia from the Giants at the trade deadline in 2016 and have been enamored with both his pitch and mound presence. They rewarded him with a spot in the rotation after a successful spring stint. He’s a thick-framed pitcher with plenty of strength and durability in his 6’3” 240-pound physique. Mejia isn’t a flamethrower and doesn’t have a true put away pitch, but he knows how to sequence and has a deep repertoire to mess with hitters. He hits his spots with a solid-average 90-94 mph fastball that ticks up in shorter relief stints. With a keen ability to change speeds and the use of two breaking balls, he sets up hitters well. The slider is further ahead at this stage of his development and he may shelve the curveball eventually. His change-up is the best of his secondary offerings and it is quite effective against right-handed hitters. If, for whatever reason, starting doesn’t work out, he could be a dominant, lefty-on-lefty reliever. For his minor-league career, Mejia has a 3.29 ERA with 2.1 BB’s/9 and 7.7 K’s/9 and we can promise you that he has much better stuff than last night’s pitcher Phil Hughes. We can’t promise you the Twinkies will win but if we’re playing strictly on value, we promise you that value lies in this falsely billed underdog.
ARIZONA +101 over Cleveland
Trevor Bauer’s haphazard pattern of skills and results are showing no signs of becoming predictable for this former top prospect. While his groundball % growth last year was nice, his swing and miss rate and first-pitch strike stagnation will prevent him from moving the needle further on his command. Without gains there, he'll continue to be a true starting pitching wildcard, as shown by his erratic as hell dominant start/disaster start split. Trevor Bauer cannot be trusted as the favorite, especially at this park that spits out pitchers that are not throwing strikes consistently.
You might have to go back to his early days in Kansas City to find the last time that Zack Greinke was a pooch in his own barn. Zack Greinke parlayed a sub-2.00 ERA and runner-up finish in the NL Cy Young voting into a six-year, $206 million deal. Regression was certain entering 2016, but not to the extent we witnessed, as his ERA rose nearly three runs. Greinke's skills did not collapse. He's still getting an above average number of swings and misses, but not quite to the level of the previous two seasons. His velocity is down a bit, though after April (91.1) and May (91.2), it rose closer to his previous marks. He continues to pound the strike zone, as his first-pitch strike rate was easily the best of his career and his control remains very strong. Greinke had a rough season, particularly the last month, when he served up eight earned runs or more on two separate occasions. His skills did fall off a bit but just as Greinke wasn't as good as his ERA suggested in 2015, he was not as bad as his ERA showed last season. He should bounce back and this is now a 2017 buying opportunity.
ST. LOUIS -1½ +120 over Cincinnati
2016 was a nightmare season for Michael Wacha, as the 26-year-old posted a 5.09 ERA, the worst of his career and missed a big chunk of August and September with shoulder inflammation. Even if we set aside Wacha's second half numbers because of the injury, his first half skills, when he was supposedly healthy, weren't much better, and in most cases, still represented career worsts. His historical trends in key areas don't offer much encouragement, either. On the plus side, he's been steadily reducing his fly-ball%, which has helped to offset some of the potential damage to his ERA. Reports about Wacha this spring have been positive but frankly, Michael Wacha is not our target here. We’ll talk plenty more about him later on when the time is right. This wager is all about fading a 40-year-old pitcher that retired three years ago.
Bronson Arroyo will be pitching in the majors for the first time since 2014, when he was in his first year with the Arizona Diamondbacks. That year, for the first time in his career, he landed on the disabled list with elbow and shoulder issues. After two reconstructive surgeries, he spent the next two-plus years working to get completely healthy. His simulated game on Sunday was the last hurdle for his arm to clear but he was facing rookie-level hitters, which would be equivalent to pitching to seniors in high school. The Reds are in rebuild mode. Two rookies made the rotation out of spring and manager Bryan Price has repeatedly emphasized that the starting rotation will be fluid throughout the season. Many of the team's inexperienced hurlers likely will shuttle between Cincinnati and Triple-A Louisville, perhaps also shuttling between starting and relieving. The Reds need bodies to hold the fort while their young pitchers gain experience at this level so using Arroyo is a cheap option that can help guide all these rookies while eating some innings. However, it’s also an embarrassment to the game and an insult to the Cardinals.
One can only imagine what will be said in the Cardinals locker room before warmups. You might hear things like, “Bronson Arroyo? Really? “Are you f**king kidding me”? “Get the f**k outta here”! It’s bad enough that the Cardinals lost and got shutout last night but this is the St. Louis Cardinals we’re talking about and not some lame franchise that you can go into their house and try and embarrass with a 40-year-old that is getting high school kids out, barely. There is an old cliché that says “let sleeping dogs lie” and if the Cardinals were a sleeping dog, the Reds just woke them up.
Larry Ness
Boston vs. Charlotte
Pick: Boston
The Celtics were embarrassed at home by the Cavs this past Wednesday (lost 114-91) and followed by losing Thursday night 123-116 in Atlanta. They are 50-29, one game back of the Cavs for the East's oN. 1 seed (although Clevealnd owns the tie-breaker), as they look to bounce back from those pair of losses when they visit the floundering Charlotte Hornets on Saturday.
The 36-43 Hornets were making a belated run at one of the last spots in the East postseason field but back-to-back losses have dropped them three games behind the No. 8 spot with just three games remaining. They are not yet mathematically eliminated from contention but the team's fate has been settled for all intents and purposes. "These games have been taxing" Charlotte head coach Steve Clifford told reporters after a 112-99 home loss to the Miami Heat on Wednesday. "We’ve been playing every game like an elimination game. I think you could see right from the beginning we had no legs. Some nights you’re disappointed because you think they can play harder. I don’t think that was the case at all."
The Celtics aren't exactly making a playoff surge, as they are only 10-7 in their last 17 games. As for the Hornets, as soon as Chicago and Indiana get to 40 wins, the Hornets will be eliminated a year after winning 48 games. However, Boston.was given a motivation boost when the Hawks won in Cleveland last night, despite resting Paul Millsap, Kent Bazemore, Dwight Howard and Dennis Schroder. The Celtics 7-1 in the last eight meetings with the Hornets and go for the season sweep in this one.
Cal Sports
Cleveland at Arizona
lay: Cleveland -108
Will back Cleveland off a loss with Trevor Bauer making his first start. Bauer who cut his finger on a drone in LY’s play-offs is raring to make his first start while he has added motivation playing of playing against the team he started his MLB career with as he made 3 starts for the Diamondbacks in 2012.
Buster Sports
Pittsburgh Penguins at Toronto Maple Leafs
Play: Pittsburgh Penguins +125
Very interesting hockey game will take place at the ACC in Toronto tonight as the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs are on the cusp of making their first playoffs since 2013. One problem they need to win a game and that may be tough to do since their last two games are against the defending Stanley Cup Champions the Pittsburgh Penguins and then tomorrow against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The oddsmakers believe they will tonight as they have been installed as a 140 favorite at the time of this writing. We believe the Penguins are not going to lay down that easily. Although the Penguins know they will be playing the Blue Jackets in the playoffs, this is Saturday night in Toronto and there is one Penguin in particular that will be imploring his teammates to play their best, that is Phil Kessel. The right winger was treated like a dog in Toronto by fans and management alike. He got a chance to rub it in by winning a cup and he would love nothing more to stop the Leafs from making the playoffs. Knowing Kessel he might just do it himself. We will be more than happy to take the live dog here with the Champs.