The Prez
San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks
Play: Arizona Diamondbacks +101
The National League West Arizona Diamondbacks are just one game behind the Spring Training favorites to win the division, the San Francisco Giants. The D’Backs have won five of their last six and send their high priced ace to the mound tonight in an attempt to begin another winning streak. Right-hander Zack Greinke takes the pill to the hill for Arizona tonight against the Giants righty Johnny Cueto in the opener of a four-game set.
Greinke has already defeated the Giants once in 2016, in mid-April, his first victory of the season. That April victory stretched his career mark to 8-0 with a 2.12 ERA in 11 career starts the G-men. San Francisco right-hander Johnny Cueto’s only loss this season came at the hands of tonight’s opposition, the Diamondbacks.
The Giants come off an extra innings win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday afternoon and send Cueto (4-1, 3.02 ERA) to the mound to oppose Greinke (3-2, 5.15) in this senior circuit divisional battle.
Giants
There are numerous reasons that Cueto turned down a free-agent offer to play for the Arizona Diamondbacks, but for the most part it is assumed for two primary reasons. Cueto believed the Giants were more likely to be a postseason team this year than that of the Diamondbacks and he had no aspirations of pitching in a bandbox as he did when a member of the Cincinnati Reds. Cueto made a return trip to his old team and venue in the first week of this month and was hit hard. Cueto allowing 6 earned runs in just 5 innings of work. The Luis Tiant want-to-be has never been as effective on the road as he has at home, in his career. While the Giants starter has solid numbers after one month of the 2016 campaign, throwing over 70 percent of his first pitches for strikes expecting the veteran to be on top of his game at Chase tonight is unreasonable.
Diamondbacks
Greinke lost his first two outings of the season and had easily one of his most lackluster Spring Training campaigns in his big league career. The former Royal, Brewer and Dodger has, however, executed quality efforts in four of his last five turns after limiting Atlanta to two runs and seven hits while striking out eight over six innings. As a member of the Dodgers Greinke owned the Giants. The Arizona starter has held San Francisco to a .221 batting average against in his career.
With catcher Buster Posey coming off two long and hard fought battles against the Toronto Blue Jays the last two days there is a chance he will be rested tonight when the two NL West teams take the diamond at Chase. Posey will be hard pressed to squat behind home plate tonight and improve on his current hitting slump (1-for-24 in his last 6 games)
Buster Sports
Nashville Predators at San Jose Sharks
Play: San Jose Sharks -180
Nashville has had a great playoff season. They beat the Western Conference higher seeded team the Anaheim Ducks as a wild card seed, and now taking the Sharks to a Game 7, but the fairy tale story for the Predators ends here. The Predators are 0-7 in San Jose lifetime in the playoffs. San Jose's PP is 28.2% the best of all the playoff teams left which gives them superior confidence in a Game 7. Listen to what one of the Sharks team leaders Joe Thornton had to say to the media yesterday. "I've loved our home game and I love the energy the crowd has been giving us. It's been great." When you hear that, you know that place well be rocking tonight and will give San Jose an easy Game 7 victory.
Oskeim Sports
Houston Astros at Boston Red Sox
Play: Boston Red Sox -136
The Astros are coming off an exhausting 16-inning affair on Wednesday and now have to travel to Fenway Park where they are 3-11 all-time, getting outscored 85-60. Houston southpaw Dallas Keuchel takes the mound with a 2-4 record and 4.70 ERA on the season, including going 1-3 with a 5.84 ERA and 1.62 WHIP on the road and 0-2 with a 6.23 ERA and 1.67 WHIP over his last three outings. Keuchel's underlying metrics are certainly better than those surface statistics (3.55 FIP; 3.66 xFIP), but his strikeout rate is down (7.77 K/9) and his walk rate is up (3.89 BB/9) from last year.
The talented lefty is also hampered by a struggling Houston bullpen that owns a 4.19 ERA in 2016, including a 6.45 ERA on the road and a 4.73 ERA at night. A lot is being made of David Price's slow start to 2016 as the crafty southpaw has a 6.75 ERA and 1.37 WHIP, including an 8.34 ERA and 1.41 WHIP at Fenway Park. Price has the second-worse ERA in baseball, his velocity is down and some are wondering if the 180-plus innings he has pitched in every full year since 2010 has taken a toll on his arm. Indeed, Price threw a combined 243.2 innings between the regular season and the playoffs during 2015.
However, Price has adjusted his mechanics after fellow teammate Dustin Pedroia noticed a flaw in his delivery. "For me, it's something I take pride in, to be able to make adjustments to find my staples, the things that I can always go back on and say, 'This is the way that I need to throw the baseball. This is the way that I need to do things,'" Price said. "I guess I watched video from last year and I wasn't doing that last year. I had good success last year, but I didn't have that rhythm earlier on this year. It's definitely frustrating to know that it can be something that small."
Let's also note that Price has the lowest strand rate among all qualified starters in baseball this season (54.2%), which is both incredibly unlucky and completely unsustainable. I expect Price's strand rate to regress towards his career average of 74.3%, resulting in a significantly better ERA. The veteran hurler also owns the second-highest BABIP among qualified starters and, like his LOB%, that number should regress closer to his career average moving forward.
In short, Price's peripheral statistics show dominance despite his ugly ERA. He owns the seventh-best K-BB% among starters in baseball this season and I expect significant improvement from the left-hander beginning tonight against an exhausted Houston squad that is averaging 3.3 runs per game versus left-handed starters (.212 AVG; .301 OBP) and 3.6 runs per game on the road (.216 AVG; .288 OBP). Price is also 3-2 with a a career 2.89 ERA and 0.91 WHIP versus the Astros. With Houston standing at 8-18 at night and 10-24 on the road versus southpaws, take the surging Red Sox and invest with confidence.
SPORTS WAGERS
Kansas City (5 innings) +121
The Yankees are almost always favored at home because of the uniforms they wear and it’s something we will continue to try to exploit until the market says otherwise or until there is no longer profits to be made. The Yanks have 13 wins in 32 games. Their hitting lineup is embarrassing, as batters five through nine are hitting .128, .216, .220, .178 and .125 respectively. Nathan Eovaldi is a young flamethrower who owns a 4.78 ERA but his base skills have been near-elite with 9 K’s/9, 2.4 BB’s/9 and 52% groundballs. The problem, however, is that when hitters make contact off Eovaldi, it is usually hard contact, as his 35% hard contact rate will attest to. That hard contact has led to a an alarming 19% hr/f rate. What that means is that Eovaldi is very likely going to be taken yard at least once. Aside from that, it matters not how well a starter does when there is little or no run support.
We’ll trust Ian Kennedy to go five innings here. Kennedy has thrown five pure quality starts is six outings and has a 2.52 ERA in four road outings. He last faced the Yankees in 2013, so there is no recent history, which works in Kennedy’s favor. It would be easy to view Kennedy’s strong 2014 as an aberration, since a return of 4+ ERA gives him three in four years, but the only reason it reached that threshold was a fluky hr/f. Last season was actually another year of skills gains coupled with a 2nd half spike of same. That makes '14 much more likely than '15. Among established starters, this one has sneaky profit potential and we’ll put that to the test here.
MILWAUKEE -1½ +161 over San Diego
Starting pitchers aside for a moment, this is a strong situational play against the Padres. You see, San Diego just handed the Cubbies their first series loss of the season by sweeping a day/night double-header yesterday. That’s a long day that was cause for celebration afterward. There is also the monotonous task of sitting through a rain delay the previous day. That’s a long two days for San Diego without a day off to travel.
Then there’s James Shields, who has made seven starts, six of which have come at pitcher-friendly parks (five at Petco, one at AT&T). Shields has one difficult venue start this year and it occurred at Coors Field in Colorado. He went six full at Coors and allowed just one earned run but don’t be fooled. Shields had traffic all game with nine hits, two walks and one hit batter. Of the 12 baserunners (a WHIP of 2.00), one of them came around to score. That is pure luck. Shields is a model of durability (8 straight seasons with at least 33 games started), but a few cracks started showing up a couple of years ago and it’s getting worse. Shields doubled his walk rate last year and LHB beat him up. HR’s have been following him around for quite some time. Shields deftly avoids disaster starts but we assure you that many are forthcoming. Shields has walked four batters or more in six innings or less in three of his last five starts. He may get away with that at Petco but he won’t at hitter-friendly venues like Miller Park. He brings a 1.41 WHIP over his last five starts into this game to go along with a very fortunate 89% strand rate. James Shields has been able to wiggle out of more than a few jams but even Chris Angel would have a difficult time making this illusion work. Shields brings his 48% first-pitch strike rate into this road start.
Jimmy Nelson might seem like a risky bet for a strong start in a home matchup against San Diego, but there are several factors supporting this choice. First, Nelson's one start against the Padres last season was a gem in which he allowed 0 earned runs in 7 innings. Second, Nelson pitches better at home than on the road, with a 3.49 home ERA compared to 4.76 away last season. That trend has continued this year, with a 3.33 ERA in Miller Park compared to 4.41 on the road. Finally, San Diego has a weak .699 road OPS, which is 11th in the NL. Finally, there is the aforementioned situational play against the Padres, not to mention the pretty sweet take-back, despite spotting 1½ runs.
Scott Delaney
My free play for Thursday night is on the Los Angeles Dodgers over the New York Mets. And I want you playing this on the run line, as the Dodgers will light up Bartolo Colon.
Colon returns to the mound for this series finale in Los Angeles and of course all the hype for the veteran righty is homering in consecutive games. That feat will be hard to triplicate, considering the competition. Plus, he is 0-for-2 lifetime against Kershaw.
Los Angeles' ace-lefty bounced back fine from a five-run outing against Miami a couple weeks ago, having allowed two earned runs in 16 innings across two starts. In that span, he’s struck out 24 and walked none. He'll neutralize this lineup and get the win.
2* DODGERS -1.5
Dr. Bob
Opinion – UNDER (197½) – San Antonio (-1½) at OKLAHOMA CITY
My math projects 197 total points in this game, so the line is fair, but game 6 tends to be a bit lower scoring than projections (1.4 points lower) and this game applies to a 41-14 game 6 Under situation. I’ll lean Under 197 points or higher based on that trend.
As far as the side is concerned, San Antonio applies to a 131-62-2 ATS playoff situation but my ratings make this game a pick and I’m not willing to give up the line value. I would lean with San Antonio at -1 or better.