MLB Predictions
Seattle Mariners +113
Last night was the first meeting between these two teams and the Yankees managed to score 3 runs in the 7th inning to take a 4-3 lead and then hung on to win. The Mariners had won 3 of 4 before last night and are 18-21 on the season and 7-12 on the road. New York has won two straight and 6 of 7 to improve to 25-14 on the year and 13-7 at home. While New York has been winning games lately it is more so due to good pitching. New York has scored 4 or fewer runs in 10 of their past 12 games. Tonight they will be in tough against one of the American League's best starters in Hisashi Iwakuma. Someone replied to my pick on the Mariners today noting that I loved betting on Iwakuma this year, and it is true. Iwakuma has been consistently good. He is 4-1 on the season with a 1.74 ERA, .167 OBA and 0.74 WHIP. Those numbers are incredibly good through 8 American League starts. He is third in OBA amongst starting pitchers (2nd in AL), 2nd in WHIP (1st in AL), 9th in ERA (3rd in AL). Over his 8 starts he has only allowed more than 2 earned runs against once, and that was 3 earned runs and 4 hits over 8 innings of work in his 2nd start of the season. His last time out he went 7 innings giving up just 4 hits and 2 earned runs with 9 strike outs and 0 walks. His strikeout to walk ratio is great at 51 strikeouts and just 8 walks. He will up against Phil Hughes who gets the ball for the Yankees. Hughes is 2-2 with a 4.43 ERA, .292 OBA and 1.38 WHIP. His last time out was his worst start of the season as he gave up 7 hits and 6 earned runs over 5.2 innings. Note that the Mariners are 6-2 in games that Iwakuma has started in, and the Yankees are 4-3 in games that Hughes has started in. The Mariners are 5-2 in Iwakuma's last 7 starts as a road underdog. Iwakuma gives Seattle a chance to win every game he starts and tonight with an underdog price against Hughes who is coming off a rough outing I think the Mariners get it done again with him on the mound. Take Seattle as underdogs.