BRAD DIAMOND
Seattle -105
Seattle is 6-2 in the series, despite coming off back-to-back losses down in Florida. We like hurler Paxton here as he just shutdown the hot hitting Rangers with no earned runs in 6-1/3 innings of work. Also, this is a "must win" game for the Mariners losers of 4 straight. With Paxton Seattle is 6-1 versus the ALE, so we look for a major rebound by the visitor this afternoon.
RAY MONOHAN
Detroit Tigers vs. Kansas City Royals
Play: Detroit Tigers -115
The Tigers and Royals play in a crucial weekend series with the top spot in the AL Central on the line here. Verlander, at this price, is a nice play. Verlander has always been clutch in big games and this is another case here where he needs to turn in a good outing. The Tigers ace has produced back to back dominant wins in June as he's allowed just 3 earned runs combined. This is a spot for Verlander to step up. This Tigers offense is clicking right now, which makes them that much more dangerous.
SPORTS WAGERS
Pittsburgh +113 over N.Y. METS
Juan Nicasio has been the nomad of this Pirates pitching staff since the injury to Garret Cole. His last appearance came in one inning of relief Friday versus the Cardinals and he gave up six runs in the 12th to take the loss. He's in the rotation today and the Mets are the perfect team for him to get back in the groove against. In Nicasio's last start June 7th against these Mets, he earned the win by allowing just one run on three hits while striking out seven in five innings of work. The Mets bats have gone silent and we will not let last night’s 11-run outburst change our minds. Prior to last night, the Mets hadn't scored more than nine total runs in their last four games. They've been shut out twice in their last 10 including game one of this series with the Bucs. It's unlikely they'll explode for another crooked number tonight but even if they do, so too might the Pirates.
Bartolo Colon continues to defy logic, gravity and physics every time the Mets roll him out to the mound. He's given up five total earned runs and just four walks over his last four games. Colon has always had great control but his recent results once again have him overpriced. It's not that he's bad, but he continues to beat up on father time and that's a battle Colon just can't win. On the surface his 3.08 ERA looks great but his expected earned run average is 4.59. This shows us that Colon has been pitching above his means while getting some luck along the way. He's giving up hits but his strand percentage is 79.8%. The Mets defense ranks in the bottom half of the league in fielding percentage, which doesn’t bode well for a pitcher that relies heavily on his defense. If Colon continues to put men on base, eventually a few of them will make it home. Colon gave up eight hits in his last start at Milwaukee but was fortunate that just one run crossed the plate over his seven innings of work. Like sand through the hour glass time is running out on big fat Bartolo. He keeps on chooglin' with laser-beam control, stellar command, and pitching ahead in the count. His subpar K-rate and swing and miss rate provide him little room for error, but his results say he doesn't make many. He shrugs off age and girth, but nobody is impervious to natural forces forever, right? Right?? He must be faded when priced in this range against a dangerous team like the Pirates. Period.
KANSAS CITY +104 over Detroit
Justin Verlander quietly is resembling the rotation anchor he used to be. He was very good in May (3.16 ERA, 0.94 WHIP) and posted solid underlying skills. Verlander has also found his groove against LH batters with 11.5 K’s/9. However, his continued fly-ball tilt (34/20/46 G/L/F) will keep him prone to blowups and while Verlander is legit, the Tigers bullpen is not. This wager is not about fading Verlander. It’s about backing a great starter at home taking back a price.
Danny Duffy has enjoyed a seamless transition back to the KC rotation, continuing the overall skill surge we saw from him in September 2015. In fact, few starters have been better than Duffy during the last month: 30/2 K/BB in 27 innings. His 17% swing and miss rate and 69% first-pitch strike rate over that period fully validates his elite command. The key has been turning his mid-90s heat into swings-and-misses. He has an 18% swing and miss rate on his four-seam fastball compared to a sub-7.5% swing and miss rate against it the prior two seasons. He's getting more movement on that pitch than he has in the recent past. He also has ironed out his wrinkles against RH bats. Finally, Duffy has been elite both at home and on the road. The only reason for his 4.76 ERA at home has been a trifecta of bad luck: 34% hit rate, 67% strand rate, 13% hr/f. Danny Duffy is the straight goods with one of the best xERA’s (2.66) in baseball. His actual and very misleading home ERA has him wrongly billed as the dog here.
Milwaukee +160 over LOS ANGELES
Junior Guerra has produced an excellent 3.31 ERA for the Brewers and it comes with the full support of his sub-indicators. Guerra has a 12% swing and miss rate, a 45% groundball rate and 28 K’s over his last 31 frames. He has a solid-average 90-94 mph fastball that has good darting action, a hard slider that serves as his put-away pitch and a split-change. Guerra has been weaker on the road, where he has a 3.71 ERA compared to 3.09 at home, which is unusual because Miller Park is a pure hitters park. That Guerra has pitched so well at home makes him even more appealing in this pitcher’s park against a Dodgers’ club that has struggled at home with a .662 OPS. That ranks 12th in the NL.
Scott Kazmir struggled with his control in his last outing against San Francisco, allowing five walks with only three strikeouts. The Brewers' 11% bb% on the road says that he'll have to get the ball over the plate. Furthermore, the Crew hit southpaws relatively well with a .726 OPS, which is just slightly above league average. It's amazing how helpful or hurtful the hit % and strand % pendulum can be. While his skills eroded, Kazmir was saved by a friendly strand rate. A rising xERA trend combined with a big second half skills erosion last year makes Kazmir far too big a risk in this price range. Yeah, he has 75 K’s in 74 innings but that ERA/xERA split of 4.52/4.41 reveals that when batters are making contact, it is hard contact. His 33% line-drive rate over his last five starts doesn’t say otherwise. Kazmir was taken yard nine times in his first six starts but has not been taken deep since in his last four starts. However, those last four starts occurred at Chicago with the wind blowing in, at San Fran at night, and in two games at home against Cincinnati and Atlanta. Kazmir’s three year hr/f rate says he is going to be taken deep a bunch more times over the next few games. Kazmir is a big risk at a big price.
MINNESOTA +126 over N.Y. Yankees
Kyle Gibson returned from a near two-month layoff to face the Red Sox last week and it wasn’t pretty. The Twins lost 15-4 with Gibson throwing 5.2 innings and allowing seven hits and five runs. The buds of Gibson’s raw ability started to blossom into skills last year, as demonstrated by the 3.84 ERA/3.94 xERA he posted. Gibson may or may not have a good game here but he’s someone we will profile more in-depth later on. What we know for sure is that the Yanks aren’t the Red Sox and that C.C. Sabathia is not what he appears to be either.
The New York Yankees keep losing but they’re still favored far too often. They were favored in Colorado both games and lost both games. They have now lost four straight and if you take away the seven runs that the Yanks scored in one inning in Colorado, they scored just six runs there in the other 17 innings while Colorado scored 19 times. Prior to that against Detroit, the Yanks scored twice in two games.
Professional baseball is a game of adjustments. Of adjusting to life on the road. Of adjusting to no longer being the alpha dog on the field. Of adjusting to the adjustments that teams make once they have a reliable scouting report. Of adjusting to one’s body over the course of a long career. C.C. Sabathia has been forced to do all of that. He’s gone from Cy Young candidate to below-replacement pitcher. He’s checked himself into rehab and handled the P.R. ramifications of such a public choice. He’s listened to his body—more directly, his decreased velocity—and introduced a cutter into his repertoire to cope with it. In short, CC Sabathia is a professional pitcher in the true sense of the word, a guy who works at his craft and takes meaningful steps to remain successful. Some things have worked more than others. But in the last 30 days, Sabathia has been the second-best starter in Major League Baseball surrounded by Madison Bumgarner, Clayton Kershaw, Johnny Cueto and Noah Syndergaard. That’s quite some company surrounding Sabathia—four front-line starters...and the Yankees’ lefty, which begs the question, is CC Sabathia fixed? Has he discovered an avenue toward sustained success with this cutter?
So really what we’re talking about is his last six-game stretch, in which he’s been phenomenal. He has only allowed three earned runs in his last 38 innings, good for an 0.71 ERA, and he’s holding hitters to a .176/.265/.221 slash line. It’s a stretch of performance that has been so utterly dominant that it has effectively made his early-season disaster look like a mere speed bump on a newly-paved road. His cutter hasn’t been a magical pitch for him in 2016. He actually struggled with it in the month of April, as opposing teams hit .290 against the pitch, admittedly with a .375 BABIP. Still, it wasn’t handcuffing right-handers like it was supposed to. It’s no secret as to what Sabathia was trying to do with his cutter to neutralize righties. He tried to pound them on the extreme inner half, often working it up in the zone to make it very difficult to handle. One could argue that his cutter vastly improved since the month of May. Opposing teams are only hitting .159 against the pitch, something that’s helped by an unsustainable .200 BABIP. When it comes to location, though, nothing really changed. Sabathia is still doing the same thing with the pitch, just suddenly getting very different results.
There is no evidence whatsoever to defend any argument that suggests Sabathia is finally improving because he’s locating it better. It’s about the same. What Sabathia’s recent run of success stems from is actually pretty simple, though, it seems. It’s simply a matter of throwing more strikes to get ahead in the count on the first pitch. But this is a game of adjustments, as noted above. Opposing hitters swung 42.42 percent of the time against Sabathia’s sinker in the month of April. They put the ball in play 24.24 percent of the time. Since May? Opposing hitters are only swinging 14.04 percent of the time on first-pitch sinkers. Opposing hitters tried to adjust to the fact that Sabathia couldn’t throw strikes. Unfortunately, when hitters stopped swinging, Sabathia started throwing more strikes, getting ahead in the count, and relying on his cutter/slider/changeup to get outs. Hitters will adjust back. They’ll start swinging more, and when they do, Sabathia will get whacked but he’s the exact same below-replacement pitcher that he was before. Will that happen today? We wish we knew but you can be damn sure we are going to be attacking Sabathia when he’s overpriced and favored on the road like he is here.
Will Rogers
Seattle vs. Tampa Bay
Pick: Seattle Analysis:
The Mariners played a 13 inning marathon in Tampa last night, losing by a score of 3-2. I think we'll see another pitcher's duel at "The Trop" here on Thursday afternoon. My money is on the Mariners veteran to out-duel Tampa's rookie.
Here are my keys to the game:
1. Pitching - The Mariners will send southpaw James Paxton to the mound, and he's been sharp in three appearances this season. Paxton (0-2, 2.25 ERA) held the Rangers scoreless through 6.1 innings, fanning seven in a no-decision in his last outing. He has 24 strikeouts in just 16 innings pitched so far. The Rays counter with rookie Blake Snell, who dazzled in his big league debut.
2. Evan Longoria - The veteran leads Tampa in home runs (16), batting average (.278), as well as RBIs (40). He left last night's game with an injury, and his status is in doubt for the series finale.
3. X-Factor - The Mariners are still 6-2 in their last eight at Tropicana Field.
Wunderdog
Texas Rangers vs. Oakland A's
Pick: Oakland A's +120
This is the seventh straight road game for Texas on a 10-game trip. The pitching staff has been taxed, allowing 25 runs the last three games and 37 the last six. Oakland has turned a corner since a seven-game skid, scoring 31 runs the last four contests. The Athletics are home for the fourth straight game and go with impressive young Daniel Mengden (3.18 ERA). He was solid in his major-league debut Saturday, giving up two runs on six hits in 5+ innings at Cincinnati. He earned a promotion by posting a combined 5-1 record with a 1.19 ERA in 11 minor-league starts between Double-A Midland and Triple-A Nashville. The Athletics have won six of eight home games, so grab the home division dog and play Oakland.
Vegas Butcher
Philadelphia Phillies +115
Nola is my #5 ranked starter, going up against my 118th ranked one in Happ. Pitching at home I like his chances here as he’s coming off a poor performance and is pitching in a bounce back spot. There’s over 40-cents of pure value on this play according to my model.
Detroit Tigers -106
As good as Duffy has been, Verlander has been just as good for the Tigers. We have two starters who are pitching extremely well right now. Of course the key factor is on the offensive end for each team. I think Duffy could struggle here, as he’s facing a righty-heavy Detroit lineup. On the other side, Royals’ offense has been pretty mediocre all year (#21 overall) and even worse without a few key guys in the lineup. Tigers have a strong advantage offensively in this one and I’ll grab them at the current price.
Brad Wilton
Talk about a high-scoring half....On Monday night, the teams combine for a whopping 122 first half points, as they went to the break tied at 61-61, and yet the game barely slipped Over the posted total, as the total points ended up at 209 (which was a push to the closing price, but in reality there were more winning Over tickets cashed) points.
I think you have to play the Under here, as the defense of Draymond Green is now back in play, and I don't think you will see either LeBron James or Kyrie Irving go off for 41 points like they did in Game 5.
The Under has still cashed in 3 of the 5 games in this series, and the real key here is that the losing team in the 5 games played has not been able to get to the 100-point plateau. In fact, the losing team is averaging just 90 points per game in the 5 games contested.
That fact makes it hard to play the Over, as the winning team would really need to hang a big number on the scoreboard, and with Golden State's best defender now back in the lineup I don't see either team going nuts on the scoreboard.
Play the Under in Game 6.
4* GOLDEN STATE-CLEVELAND UNDER
Gabriel DuPont
Complimentary play, I look to improve on my 68-62 run with free picks: N.Y. Yankees at MINNESOTA (+130).
The STORYLINE in this game today - The New York Yankees have dropped four straight games, and leave Denver to play a four-game set in Minneapolis, with no time off. So one day after losing to the Colorado Rockies in Interleague play, the Yankees are going to drop this one against the Minnesota Twins.
The X-FACTOR in making this choice on this game - The momentum is very clear, and I like the price against the team that is losing. The Yankees pitching staff has a disappointing road ERA of 4.62. And don't get me wrong, there are 10 teams with worse road marks from the mound, but when mired in a losing skid like this, the Bombers are going to struggle against a lineup that is hitting .255 this month, and has stroked 17 home runs in June.
BOTTOM LINE is - New York has fallen off the pace in the American League East, as it is 6.5 games back of Baltimore, and a disappointing 13-20 on the road. The Yankees are alone in last place, now. And so are the Twins, but this will be a big homecoming for them, as they realistically have a good opportunity to take advantage of this struggling Yankees team.
1* TWINS
RAY MONOHAN
Detroit Tigers -115
The Tigers and Royals play in a crucial weekend series with the top spot in the AL Central on the line here. Verlander, at this price, is a nice play. Verlander has always been clutch in big games and this is another case here where he needs to turn in a good outing.
The Tigers ace has produced back to back dominant wins in June as he's allowed just 3 earned runs combined. This is a spot for Verlander to step up. This Tigers offense is clicking right now, which makes them that much more dangerous.
JACK JONES
New York Yankees -130
The New York Yankees are highly motivated for a victory in Game 1 of this series after losing four straight coming in. They should not have a problem getting it against the AL-worst Minnesota Twins (20-45) with the edge they have on the mound.
C.C. Sabathia got clean in the offseason and it's paying major dividends. The left-hander is 4-4 with a 2.28 ERA and 1.213 WHIP in 10 starts, including 1-1 with a 1.00 ERA in his last three. Sabathia owns the Twins, going 19-9 with a 3.19 ERA and 1.222 WHIP in 38 career starts against them.
Kyle Gibson has struggled all season for the Twins, going 0-4 with a 6.49 ERA and 1.670 WHIP in five starts, including 0-2 with an 8.04 ERA in his last three. Gibson hates facing the Yankees, going 1-3 with a 10.72 ERA and 1.898 WHIP in five career starts against them.
Minnesota is 2-18 (-16.4 Units) against the money line after scoring 2 runs or less this season. The Yankees are 26-11 in Sabathia's last 37 starts vs. American League Central. The Twins are 13-41 in their last 54 games following a loss. Minnesota is 1-5 in Gibson's last six home starts.
SCOTT RICKENBACH
Blue Jays vs. Phillies
Play: Phillies +119
When you see a match-up like this where the line has moved the way it has, you know some "sharp money" is involved. "Public players" are likely to line up on the Blue Jays as Toronto has won 5 of their last 6 and the Phillies have lost 6 of their last 7. However, even though there is all that public attraction for the favorite here, the Blue Jays dropped from an opener of -150 to as low as a -120 earlier today on the money line. It is evident the "sharps" are pounding the Phillies and I am one of those recommending the same. Aaron Nola gets the start for the Phils and he has a 3.20 ERA and 1.05 WHIP on the season. He has struck out 45 in his 38 innings at home. He'll be opposed by J.A. Happ who could struggle as he feels the pressure of facing a former team. He was fortunate to escape Philly without damage being done when he walked 4 batters in just 5 innings at Philadelphia in his most recent start against the Phillies two seasons ago. Happ comes into this start having allowed 10 earned runs in his last two outings and has given up 5 homers in these two starts! By contrast, Nola has allowed ZERO homers in his last two starts. Looks like solid value here with the home dog having the starting pitcher who is in much better current form. The Phillies split with the Jays in Toronto to start this week and I see them splitting with the Blue Jays in Philly to end their 4-game home and away series here.
DAVE PRICE
New York Mets -123
The Mets are known for their starting pitching, but Bartolo Colon's name is almost never brought up when people talk about their staff. That's because they have a bunch of young studs and the veteran Colon. But Colon has been just as good this season, going 5-3 with a 3.14 ERA in 12 starts, including 1-2 with a 2.73 ERA in 5 home starts. Colon has excelled against the Pirates in the past, going 4-2 with a 1.88 ERA and 1.064 WHIP in 8 lifetime starts against them. Juan Nicasio has been great at home for Pittsburgh, but it's been a different story on the road all season. Nicasio is 0-3 with a 6.20 ERA and 1.581 WHIP in 5 road starts this year. The Pirates are 1-6 in their last 7 games overall.
Harry Bondi
DETROIT -115 over Kansas City
Another Big Underdog FREE WINNER with Kansas City +130 over Cleveland last night as we have done well riding the Royals 9 game home winning streak, but we are calling the turn here! Justin Verlander has pitched great over the last 6 weeks going 4-1 with a 2.48 ERA. Getting him laying just 115 is to good a value for us to pass up.
Bob Balfe
Cavs -2
The NBA is clown show. We all know it. Why wouldn’t they want this series to go to seven games. I don’t know about you, but it is troublesome to hear the excuses coming from the Warriors team on why they didn’t win game five. Irving and James had remarkable games on the road and now that momentum carries over to their home court tonight. This series is far from over and I expect the Cavs to cash in again tonight. Will we have a game 7 showdown?
Blue Jays -125
The Phillies main problem is their lack of ability to hit the baseball at home. This is a hitters park and still they can’t put up even 3 runs per game which spells trouble against a Toronto team that has power up and down their line up. The Blue Jays have been swinging the bats very well as of late and all it takes is one multiple run inning to put the Phillies in too deep of a hole to climb back from.