Jimmy Boyd
1 Unit on Tampa Bay Rays -140
Davis has already faced the White Sox once this season, and he completely shut them down, allowing 0 runs on just 2 hits in 6 innings of work in a 12-0 win. And consider the Rays are 5-1 in Davis' last 6 starts vs. a team with a losing record, I like their chances here. I know Danks has some good career numbers against Tampa Bay, but the Rays' success against southpaw starters has me leaning their way in this bounce back game. In fact, the Rays are 5-1 in their last 6 home games vs. a left-handed starter and 13-3 in their last 16 overall games vs. a left-handed starter. The White Sox are just 15-36 in their last 51 games following a win and 13-28 in their last 41 games as a road underdog. Take Tampa Bay here.
Tony George
Boston -140
My PODCAST free opinion yesterday was on Kansas City +180, who destroyed Boston last night. Today I switch sides in this series. Boston is HORRIBLE in opening Friday series games, now 2-7 the last 9 weeks on Fridays!
Look for the Red Sox to bounce back against Greinke who has struggled all year and I do not think KC can take a 2-0 series lead on the road against a team like the Red Sox. Buckholtz for Boston has been off the charts his last 3 games with under a 2 ERA, and I do not see KC winning back to back games on the road against a quality team who is motivated.
JR O'Donnell
TEX (+110) vs MIN
These pesky and dangerous Texas Rangers + the juice get the call today from "JR O" as we are not high at all on 4-5 Overall and 4.17 ERA C Pavano and the Twins. He has been shelled by the Texas Rangers the last 2. 0-2 and over a 13 ERA for Pavano. This is a strong gut play from us and the Rangers are in need of a road W today. The Texas Rangers are a dangerous dog today and the Twins Pavano will get bombed by the Rangers . Let's Roll Out TEXAS + 110 !!
Larry Ness
SFG (-150) vs ARI
Jonathan Sanchez has a tough act to follow, as last night Matt Cain pitched a one-hitter in San Francisco's 5-0 win over Arizona. It marked the D'backs' fifth straight loss, two games shy of their seven-game slide back on May 7-14. Arizona's been held to just 11 runs during its slump (2.2 RPG) which does not bode well up against a Giants team which is 16-9 at home, allowing just 2.84 RPG. Sanchez opened the 2010 season 2-1 with a 1.85 ERA in four April starts but has gone 0-3 over his last five (team is 1-4). However, it's not as if he's getting hammered, as his ERA in May is a respectable 3.86. Most of the problem has been that his teammates have hardly been very supportive, scoring a total of only 12 runs in his winless stretch. The D'backs will give Billy Buckner his third start of 2010, since being called up from the minors on May 18. Buckner was hardly impressive last year, going 4-6 with a 6.40 ERA in 16 appearances (13 starts). He allowed 94 hits in 77.1 innings, while the D'backs were 5-8 in his starts. He pitched well in his first start of 2010 (5 IP / 6 hits / 2 ERs) but lost 8-0 at Florida. He was awful last weekend vs the Blue Jays, lasting only four innings while allowing 11 hits and eight runs (seven earned) in a 12-4 loss. Buckner was 0-2 with a 9.90 ERA in two starts against the Giants last year, while Sanchez was 3-1 with a 2.67 ERA in five starts (team was 4-1) vs the D'backs. Add to that Arizona has dropped 11 of its last 13 at AT&T Park, is 3-10 on the road against NL West opponents this year and 9-17 while allowing 6.04 RPG on the road vs all opponents in 2010. So why shouldn't we play the Giants?
Nite Owl Sports
Lakers / Suns Over 216
We like the OVER in tis game, based on the line value that we believe we are getting on it at 216, and the fact that we expect a close game here, with likely excessive late game fouling by whichever team is trailing late, which extends the game and the scoring, and is what pushed both games 3 and 4 in Phx over the total, despite the closing totals line being significantly higher for those games (at 219 in game 3 and 220 in game 4) than for this game 6.
Anyway, back to the #s and reasoning behind our pick on the OVER in this game. These two teams have gone 4-1 to the OVER vs the closing line in the five games of this series (counting game 4 as as over, vs the closing line of 220 for that game), but more significantly, for an average of 225 total ppg, including 227 and 221 total points in games 3 and 4 in Phx. Moreover, the scoring has been consistently high throughout the five games, with with 7 of the 20 quarters played featuring 60> points (including a 73 point 2Q last game in Phx with a whopping 41 points by Suns), and just 3 of the 20 quarters having less than 50 total points scored. So these two offensively potent teams will score their points, and they have made up for their 3 scoring droughts so far in the series (a 46 point 1Q in game 4, a 45 point 1Q in game 5, and a 40 point 2Q in game 3) with enough scoring “flurries” to catch up with and surpass the full game totals line in two of those 3 games. So not really knowing when these rare scoring droughts will occur or when the more frequent flurries of scoring will happen, and with excessive late game fouling always a possibility just like in games 3 and 4 in Phx, the most logical way to play the OVER is on the full game line. And while we could not figure out why the line makers dropped the totals line for game 5 (from 220 in game 4 to 218 in game 5), after not only four straight overs but two easy overs in games one and two in LA, andwith no significant injuries to either team, the 204 point game 5 under is obviously the reason why it was again dropped for this game, from 218 in game 5 to 216 here.
And to get a better feel for whether we are getting decent line value here with the full game OVER at 216, with emphasis on the teams’ most recent play in their respective modes for the game at hand (taking into account factors such as game site, # of days of rest from the last game, and caliber of opposition), we checked the totals results for 16 combined “representative games” for both teams in their respective modes for this game (9 Phx home games vs “A” teams and 7 Laker roadies vs A teams) – more specifically, for Lakers we looked at their two regular season games in Phx plus gams 3 and 4, their two games at Utah last round, and their first round game 6 at Okie, while for Suns we looked at their two HGs last round vs SA, 3 late regular season HGs vs SA and (two) vs Jazz, and of course their 4 HGs TY vs LA, including games 3 and 4. First, Lakers were 4-2-1 vs the total in their six roadies, with an average of 211.5 total points, while in their 9 HGs, Suns were 7-2 to the Over, with an average of 215.5 total points, all of which look like pretty good Over numbers, but for the fact that the totals line in this game is a moderately high but beatable 216. Combining and averaging those totals results for both teams, and counting the two regular season Lakers-Suns games in Phx just once each to avoid over-emphasis on same, but counting the games 3 and 4 totals results twice (once for each team) due to the added relevance of same, we get a nice 10-3-1 ATS edge for the OVER, but a projected 213.5 total points being scored in this game (2.5 points less than tonite’s totals line of 216).