Free Picks for Sunday, June 4th, 2017 from some of the nations best and worst handicappers
DAVE COKIN
ROCKIES AT PADRES
PLAY: ROCKIES
The San Diego hot streak ended with a thud on Saturday as the Padres got destroyed at Petco by the Rockies. I like the Colorado side to pick up another win today.
Jeff Hoffman is back up from AAA to make this start for the Rockies. I think another good showing here might enable him to stick around as he appears to be ready for full time big league action. Hoffman has the arsenal to be a very good major league starter. Big heater, plus breaking ball and an improving change. Command has been an issue previously, but it sure looks like Hoffman is putting that problem in the rear view mirror. If the big righty shows up with his good stuff today, he’ll have a chance to dominate the Padres.
Jarred Cosart will throw for the Friars, and if he’s his usual self, finding the plate on a regular basis could be a problem. I just don’t see Cosart as a starting pitcher at this level. That doesn’t rule out a productive career as there are countless failed starters who’ve gone on to be outstanding relievers. But as long as Cosart is drawing starting assignments, I’ll probably be looking to try and beat him when the price is right.
Colorado will be the favorite in this game, but I’m willing to spot a price as long as it’s reasonable. Rockies -130 or better will be playable for me.
Scott Rickenbach
Cavs vs. Warriors
Play: Over 220½
As usual there has been a big adjustment from the markets after one game. The total on the first game was in the 226.5 range and now you have this one dropping into the 220 range. Keep in mind that even with the Cavaliers having an ugly game in the Thursday opener, the game was still on pace for 220 points as of the 3rd quarter. Through the first 3 quarters of Game 1 the teams totaled 165 points. Again this was with the Cavs having an ugly game and, the point is, the ugly 4th quarter Thursday is simply serving to give us some excellent line value on the total here in Game 2. Even with the Game 1 under, the over is still 9-5 in all Cavaliers playoff games this post-season. Also, the over is 12-7 this season when Cleveland is playing a game with 2 days of rest between games. The Warriors are 7-2 to the over in this post-season when they are leading in a playoff series. Also, Golden State is 11-4 to the over when playing with 2 days of rest between games.
Ray Monohan
Cavs vs. Warriors
Play: Cavs +9
The Cavaliers and Warriors face off on Sunday and I think the visitors have a lot of value on the spread. The Cavaliers got flat out embarrassed in game one and they will come out motivated in game two to at least make it a basketball game. The Warriors were really good with the ball in game and limited their turnovers. I think the Cavaliers will make that a focus in this game to force a few more turnovers.
I think we see playoff LeBron activated in this one and he will do anything he can to lead his team to victory and if not victory at least keep it close. Some trends to note. Cavaliers are 7-1-1 ATS in their last 9 road games. Warriors are 3-10 ATS in their last 13 Sunday games.
Scott Spreitzer
Washington at Oakland
Play: Washington -105
Washington had its four-game winning streak snapped on Saturday, but the Nationals still have won nine of their last 12 games and are 18-11 on the road. Oakland has lost six of its last eight and Bryce Harper returns from his suspension on Sunday. Tanner Roark is coming off two great starts allowing one run in 14 innings with 14 strikeouts and just one walk. The Nationals are 18-8 their last 26 games after a loss dating to last season and they have won 12 of Roark's last 17 road starts. Sonny Gray was clobbered for seven runs and nine hits in 4 2/3 innings on Tuesday in his sixth start since coming off the disabled list. The Athletics have lost nine of their last 12 interleague home contests and 17 of Gray's last 24 starts.
Marc Lawrence
Atlanta at Cincinnati
Play: Atlanta +105
Edges - Braves: Teheran 1.42 ERA and 1.01 WHIP away as opposed to 8.40 ERA and 1.80 WHIP home this season… Reds: Garrett 2-4 last six overall team starts… With Teheran 3-1 his last four starts in this series, look for him to improve to 2-0 here in his career team starts today. We recommend a 1* play on Atlanta.
Tony Karpinski
Cardinals vs. Cubs
Play: Cubs -156
The Cubs are looking for some upward momentum in this pitching duel at Wrigley Field on Sunday night. They've gone 5-5 in their last ten games.
Chicago starter Hendricks retired the first 10 batters he faced in his last outing against the Padres, but served up a fourth-inning grand slam to Hunter Renfroe that cost the Cubs the game. Hendricks is 3-2 with a 2.81 ERA in his last seven starts.
The Chicago Cubs have been above average at home, posting a 16-11 record. Cardinals are 1-5 in their last 6 road games. We like Chicago to get a home win here on Sunday night baseball on ESPN.
Dustin Hawkins
Cardinals vs. Cubs
Play: Cubs -156
Play on any home favorites with a money line of -150 or more (Chicago Cubs) - cold hitting team - batting .250 or worse over their last 20 games, starting a pitcher who walked less than 1 hitter each of his last 2 outings. (170-54 over the last 5 seasons.) (75.9%). St. Louis is 2-10 against the money line when playing with a day off this season. Cards pitcher Michael Wacha is 4-5 when starting against the cubs lifetime with an ERA of 5.82 and a WHIP of 1.492.
Jim Feist
Twins at Angels
Pick: Over
This is a good home run park and the Over is 40-13-1 in the Twins last 54 vs. a team with a losing record. They are also 32-15-4 over the total against the American League West. Young Jose Berrios has allowed 7 runs his last 11 innings (2 starts). The L.A. Angels are on a 5-2 run over the total at home. Starter Ricky Nolasco (2-5, 5.07 ERA) has been hit hard the last two starts. And the Over is 42-19-5 in the last 66 meetings.
Brad Wilton
Sunday's comp play goes on the wrecking ball that is the Golden State Warriors.
Cleveland may be the defending champions, but Golden State sure as hell is looking like the team that wants to reclaim the title they won two seasons ago.
The addition of superstar Kevin Durant adds a dimension to the Warriors that they did not have last season, and after comfortably coasting to a 113-91 win on Thursday night, Golden State is now a perfect 13-0 this postseason, with 11 of those 13 wins coming by double-digits.
Cleveland will try and make some adjustments to keep Durant from driving to the basket uncontested, but they had better then guard against the three-point shot that is so deadly for the Warriors.
I don't know, any way you slice it, I see this one getting away from Cleveland much the same way it got away from them on Thursday night.
The oddsmakers know what they are doing with this price, so don't allow the temptation of backing LeBron James plus near double-digits get the better of you.
This one is all Warriors.
3* GOLDEN STATE
Jeff Benton
They held just Under on Saturday, but that was because Toronto could not score any runs off of New York pitching.
The Over is still 6-1 the last 7 times these A.L. East rivals have met dating back to last season.
New York is now 5-2 Over the total in their last 7 games, while Toronto stands at 3-2-1 their last 6 contests.
For the year, Luis Severino has seen 6 of his 10 starts land Over the total, including 2 of his last 3. Meanwhile, Marcus Stroman has seen each of his last 3 games worked land Over the total, and the Over is 7-3-1 for the year.
Play the percentages, and the percentages say to play Over.
5* N.Y. YANKEES-TORONTO OVER
Jimmy Boyd
Houston vs. Texas
Play: Texas +118
I like the value here with Texas as a home dog against the red-hot Astros. Houston comes in having won 9 straight, but I look for the streak to come to an end in this one. I believe the Astros made the mistake of moving Brad Peacock back in the rotation after he thrived out of the bullpen. He looked good in his first start at home against the Tigers, but struggled in his previous outing at Minnesota and I look for that to continue here against a Rangers team that has scored 5+ runs in 4 of their last 5 games.
Another big key here is the success that Rangers starter Martin Preze has had against this Houston team. Perez owns a 2.49 ERA and 1.190 WHIP in 9 career starts against the Astros. Perez is also a perfect 8-0 against the money line in his last 8 June starts and the Rangers are 30-15 in their last 45 home games after playing 4 or more straight games at home.
ASA
Cavaliers at Warriors
Play: Over 220.5
The adjustments made by the oddsmakers has been too drastic and the value clearly lies with an OVER wager here. In Game 1 the Warriors put up 113 points but missed 30 shot attempts in the lane, 20 of those came in the first half or that game could have been a blowout sooner. The Warriors 1.181 points per possession in the playoffs is second only to the Cavs and they’ve averaged 118.3PPG due to a higher pace of play. Cleveland had 52 points at halftime and the game was on pace to finish with around 224 total points. The Cavs though managed just 39 points in the second half of the game. Cleveland is averaging 1.226 points per possession in the post season (granted versus the East but still…) and 116.8PPG. Because the Cavs defense is so bad they know the only way to win this series is to out-score the Warriors and that’s a dangerous proposition, but a chance they’ll have to take. Based on our projections, with a moderate to fast pace, this game should go over rather easily tonight.
Brandon Lee
Yankees vs. Blue Jays
Play: Blue Jays -114
Toronto is worth a look here at home against New York. The Blue Jays will be motivated to get a split in this 4-game set and have the starter on the mound to make sure that happens. Toronto's Marcus Stroman is 6-2 with a 3.28 ERA in 11 starts this season and most importantly has a great track record against New York, posting a 2.90 ERA in 9 career starts versus the Yankees. On the flip side of this, New York starter Luis Severino has an ugly 7.29 ERA in 5 career starts against the Blue Jays. That includes an earlier outing this season at home, where he gave up 5 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks in 5 2/3 innings of a 1-7 loss.
SPORTS WAGERS
Pittsburgh +109 over N.Y. METS
Trevor Williams throws strikes. He’s only walked four batters over his last 25 frames and that goes hand in hand with what he did in the spring. In fact, the 6'3", 230-pound Williams had a great spring, striking out 18 in 17.2 IP while walking only two. Trevor Williams is a rookie also but he’s paid his dues and has a swing and miss rate of 10%. He also has a four-pitch mix that he can throw for strikes at any time. Williams doesn’t have any real put-away pitch but he’s adept at keeping hitters off-balance. That said, this one is all about fading Tyler Pill.
Yeah, yeah, we know we said we wouldn’t bet the Pirates again but that was just steam. We have to continue to play value and we promise you that Tyler Pill is not even close to being major-league ready. Pill is coming off a beauty against the Brewers ---on paper but it was one of the luckiest starts you will ever see. His pitching line in his first start was 5.1 innings pitched, six hits and one earned run but under the hood reveals a completely different story. In those 5.1 innings, Pill walked four batters and struck out four batters but his swing and miss rate of 3% says the Brewers were a little too anxious to hit his 88 MPH fastball. Pill was pitching with traffic all game and left with a 1.83 WHIP and a BABIP of .125. A 3% swing and miss rate is what an everyday fielder registers when he comes into pitch in a blowout game in the ninth inning. We’ve all seen it. The score is 20-2 in the ninth inning and the manager doesn’t want to use an arm so he asks one of his bench players to throw the ninth inning. That bench player will get a 3% swing and miss rate too. At Triple-A Las Vegas, Pill walked 14 batters and struck out 23 in 46 innings so he wasn’t striking ‘em out in the minors either. This is a Double-A pitcher making his second career start after the planets were aligned perfectly for him in his first.
MILWAUKEE +125 over Los Angeles
Zach Davies is a consistent strike-thrower with a strong groundball lean (56%) with not much of a platoon split and few disaster starts over the past two years. His marginal swing and miss rate likely caps his K rate and his xERA shows, the "low ceiling, high floor" label does seem to fit here. However, value in that predictability. Davies is a risk when favored but he has profit potential as a pooch.
Kenta Maeda is an iffy proposition for this road start in Milwaukee. Maeda’s fly-ball tendencies play into a big positive in the Milwaukee splits (.855 OPS vs. fly-ball pitchers), and the Dodger right-hander is coming off back-to-back shaky starts. The Brewers have an excellent aggregate line against the slider, an important pitch in the Maeda arsenal. Most importantly, the Dodgers are overpriced here in a big way.
Minnesota -1½ +147 over L.A. ANGELS
Ricky Nolasco has a 5.07 ERA after 11 starts. What’s more disturbing is that he has a strand rate of 80%. If his strand rate was normal, he’d be counting heads on the bus from the hotel to the park instead of taking the mound every fifth day. The Angels have lost Nolasco’s last six starts in which he’s been tagged for 46 hits in 31 innings. That hit percentage is the result of always being around the plate with pedestrian stuff. His 35%/45% groundball/fly-ball split isn’t encouraging either.
It’s very tempting to play the Twins here at -111 just in case they win by only one run but if we thought it was going to be that close, we would not bet it. Of course nobody knows for sure but the Twinkies -111 is a bargain and so is spotting the extra half run here.
Jose Berrioshad a big debut month after being recalled from Triple-A. He had a great 2.70 ERA and 0.79 WHIP over his four starts, and those marks were backed by strong skills: 9.1 K’s/9, 2.7 BB’s/9 and a 46% groundball rate. His command sub-indicators were rock solid too: 10.5% swing and miss rate, 62% first-pitch strike rate and 65% overall strikes. Berrios is one of baseball’s best pitching prospects and has started to show it at the big league level. He labored through an ugly 58.3 IP last year with virtually nothing going right (the 8.02 ERA and 1.87 WHIP tell the story, as the skills weren’t there and the poor results followed) across 14 starts. He’s been electric in four starts and looks nothing like the young arm who struggled so much last year. All three pitches are markedly better, but the fastball is the key, of course. The high fastball has been particularly important and led to a .259 OPS and 35% K’s on the pitch. High fastballs have ended 25% of his plate appearances this year. The curveball has been straight filth. He’s gotten 12 strikeouts with it in 23 plate appearances. He has hung a couple for homers in his outing at Baltimore but it’s a true out pitch right now and the Angels aren’t the Orioles. Play the Twinkies straight up or -1½ but play it because it’s a true pitching mismatch at a bargain price.