Matt Rivers
Take the points with the Bulls at home over the Cavaliers.
This is a lot of points for Cleveland to be laying on the road. Especially coming off a loss in Game 3.
I know the Cavs are the superior team and should win this series easily, but I think the win in Game 3 gave the Bulls some much-needed confidence and it’s going to carry them a long way here at home in Game 4.
The underdog is 6-2 ATS in the last eight meetings between these two, including 4-1 ATS in the last five. The home team is on a 20-9 ATS roll with the Bulls cashing in five of the last seven at the United Center.
Take the points with the Bulls as this one goes down to the wire.
1♦ CHICAGO
Jimmy Moore
St. Louis @ San Francisco
Pick: St. Louis
The Cardinals are solid on the road and Penny is rock solid with an ERA under 1.3 so far this season. The Giants are not playing well right now and Cain is a good pitcher but not as good as Penny right now.
Dan Bebe
ANA (+110) vs NYY
Javier Vazquez has admitted that he's still struggling with the mechanics on his fastball, and it's costing him a solid 4-5 mph on what is generally a very effective pitch.
Scott Kazmir altered his delivery in his last start, and supposedly got some life back on his pitches. He also, despite a bad start in New York, has historically pitched pretty well against the Yankees, and I believe that with some confidence in his back pocket, he'll give the Angels 6 relatively solid innings of work.
New York dominated yesterday's contest, but Andy Pettitte is pitching other-worldly right now, so it really didn't matter how the Angels played.
When push comes to shove, New York doesn't play all that well in Southern California, and I expect the Angels to continue to give Vazquez a tough time, and make him pay for mistakes.
The line on this game has been steadily dropping, and I think we can still grab the Angels while there's still some value on this side. Let's play the home dogs to take the series from New York with a nice offensive effort!
Play on LAA.
ATL (-115) vs NYM
Tommy Hanson is the real deal. There it is, I just laid it out there.
But I kid.
The fact of the matter is that this is about the best price we're going to get on Hanson against any team not among the MLB elite, and the reason is that his opponent, Mike Pelfrey, is off to a tremendous start this year.
However, if there's one team that Pelfrey has struggled against, it's the Atlanta Braves. He has a career ERA against Atlanta over 6 runs, and he's just 2-5 against the Braves.
Chipper Jones, Martin Prado and Brian McCann have each hit Pelfrey very hard in the past, and I believe that on the big ESPN stage, one of those guys will do some damage again.
But, what of Hanson? Well, he shut out the Mets in his brief work against them, and no one on New York's roster has done much damage against Hanson. There are, in fact, quite a few goose-eggs in the "hit" column of the Mets' career numbers against Tommy.
My one concern is that the Braves leave 15 runners on base, but I believe they'll have some opportunities, and with two fairly decent bullpens, I think Atlanta takes the lead into the late innings, and I think they slam the door to come out of New York with their dignity, avoiding the sweep.
Play on the Braves