Mike Anthony
Toronto vs. Baltimore
Play: Baltimore -128
Baltimore is hot right now and they are also 41-26 at home. They've won 7 in a row and they start Jeremy Hellickson on Thursday night. He will look for his fourth quality start since being acquired from the Phillies on July 28. After having two rough outings, the righty picked up the win last time out allowing two runs on four hits through seven innings. The Orioles are red hot and now return home on a streak and I'll back them here as your comp.
Zack Cimini
Washington vs. Milwaukee
Pick: Washington -108
One of the biggest surprises amongst starting pitchers has been the Nationals Gio Gonzalez. Gonzalez boasts a 13-5 record and over his last five starts has allowed three total runs. Opposite him Thursday is 15-7 starter Zach Davies. While Davies has been equally impressive in the win-loss department, grab the Nationals to showcase proper money line value.
Jim Feist
Boston at New York
Pick: Under
A pair of reliable arms are on the mound with great bullpens. Boston is 23-7-2 under the total when Rodriguez takes the mound. The Under is also 25-12 when the Red Sox are on the road against a left-handed starter. New York is 15-7-2 under the total against a team with a winning record, plus 37-17-3 under when Sabathia starts. And the Under is 10-1-1 in Sabathia's last 12 starts vs. Red Sox.
Dave Cokin
Ohio State at Indiana
Play: Indiana +21
I give Indiana a decent chance to hang in tonight against the Buckeyes. Ohio State is clearly the superior entry and they certainly figure to win the game by a comfortable margin.
But to cover the Buckeyes would need to blow out the Hoosiers by more than three TD’s, and I don’t see Indiana as a pushover. The key for me is what should be an improved Hoosiers defense and a veteran QB who should cut down on his turnovers.
There are couple of checklist categories that point to Indiana as being under the radar improved and we’re getting a load of points against a very public Buckeyes squad. I’m going to give Indiana plus the points a roll tonight.
Brandon Lee
Tulsa vs. Oklahoma St
Play: Tulsa +17.5
Just about every average joe I talk to likes Oklahoma State to cover this big spread at home on Thursday against Tulsa. That has me looking the other way and you can make a strong case for backing the Golden Hurricane in this one.
Tulsa does lose some skill players that put up big time numbers, including their starting quarterback. What people are forgetting is that head coach Philip Montgomery and his offensive scheme that turned Baylor into what it is today is why those guys put up the numbers they did. Keep in mind he took over a team that had gone 2-10 and averaged 24.7 ppg and in his first year on the job had them scoring 37.2 ppg while averaging nearly a 100 yards more of total offense.
The talent is there, including highly recruited sophomore QB Chad President. They get back a guy who rushed for more than 1,400 yards and got a guy back that caught 50 passes for 685 yards and 4 scores as a sophomore.
Oklahoma State is getting a ton of love going into the season, but how much can you really get excited about a Big 12 team. That conference is by the weakest of the Power 5. The offense has three studs and is going to score a lot, but for what it's worth they averaged fewer points and yards/game than Tulsa. Defensively they only return 5 starters and have to replace their top two tacklers. Give me the Golden Hurricane +17.5 and for those that like action, throw a little on the OVER 69!
Brandon Shively
Tulsa vs. Oklahoma St
Pick: Tulsa +17.5
The Tulsa Golden Hurricane are a team I believe is underrated heading into the season. They have a really good coach in Phillip Montgomery. They also have a fast improving defense. They'll obviously be tested in a big way here, but Tulsa's defense is better than most realize.
Oklahoma State's defense isn't any good, and Tulsa has a big strong offensive line. Look for Tulsa to run the ball effectively here and stay in the game that way. Oklahoma State is going to allow a lot of points this year, and Tulsa is better than multiple Big 12 teams this season.
This is too many points in this spot based on Oklahoma State getting a bunch of hype in the preseason.
Larry Wallace
Nationals vs. Brewers
Play: Nationals +102
Taking the Nationals in this match-up against the Brewers. Gonzalez this year has been fantastic. Gonzalez is 13-5 with a 2.40 ERA. Also, while pitching on the road he is 9-3 with a 2.91 ERA. Lastly, with Gonzalez he is 3-0 with a 0.93 ERA in his last 3 starts. Davies this year has a 5.97 ERA while pitching at home. The Nationals average 5.2 runs per game while playing on the road this year, while the Brewers give up 4.4 runs at home.
Wunderdog
Chicago @ Minnesota
Pick: Minnesota -144
The rebuilding Chicago White Sox are 22-45 on the road and getting worse, off an 11-1 defeat here yesterday. The offense is trending downward at #25 in runs scored, and #26 in on-base percentage, with the worst record in the AL. Chicago is on a 15-34 run, including 14-39 on the road. Miguel Gonzalez takes the mound and is decent at home but 3-7 with a 5.29 ERA on the road. Minnesota is #11 in runs scored on offense, #10 in on-base percentage, on a three-game win streak, plus taking 10 of 14. The Twins are just one game behind the New York Yankees for the first Wild Card spot and have won six in a row at home. Minnesota starter Bartolo Colon may be 100-years-old, but he still knows how to pitch, with the team 4-1 his last five starts. He comes off a 6-1 win at Toronto allowing one run in 6+ innings and the home team holds all the cards again.
SPORTS WAGERS
MINNESOTA -24 over Buffalo
For decades, the reputation of this Gophers’ program was to ground and pound while grinding out games. No more. With the hiring of former Western Michigan head coach and offensive guru, PJ Fleck, it's safe to say that the culture in Minnesota is about to change. With Fleck bringing his high-powered offensive philosophy to Minnesota, there's an excitement that hasn't been felt on campus in quite some time. Fleck brings a bushel of intensity to this Gopher program after leading WMU to a 13-1 record in 2016 with the Mustangs only loss coming to Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl. Senior defensive tackle Steven Richardson summed it up best, “He (Fleck) brings the juice every single day in practice. If he turns it up a little bit more for a game, that's just a forbidden energy”. Flecks attention to detail during spring practices and fall camps was noticeable and we expect the Gophers to be in high intensity mode here. Fleck has something to prove now that he’s taken a big step up in conference class. He’s a Big-10 coach now.
The 2016 Bulls were about as bad as it gets and we don’t see any improvement this season. They averaged less than 17 points per game and generated 354 yards per game of total offense, which ranked 126th in the nation out of 128 teams. That's not positive. Not only did head coach Lance Leipold not get fired, but he didn't even fire the offensive coordinator. Instead he moved him over to coach the quarterbacks and running backs. That doesn't bode well for QB Tyree Jackson, who is 6'7” and looks like he should be clanging and banging with the defense instead of taking snaps. It doesn't help that Jackson has zero offensive weapons around him. Jackson lost his top three targets from a year ago. The Bulls offense is going to rely heavily on the ground game but they also lost their 1000 yard rusher from a year ago and replaced him with their third best RB last season.
For reasons we'll try to explain, the Bulls are receiving some attention in this game and we’re attributing it to the Gophers style of play not being conducive to spotting big points. That was the past but this is a new and exciting era in Minnesota Gophers football that the market has not yet embraced. The general feeling in this market is not really about getting behind the Bulls but more about taking back three TD’s and a FG against what is perceived as a ball-control Gophers team without much explosiveness. That’s enough to induce a lot of bettors to nibble on the dog right out of the gate, especially with a total of 50. Well, if the final score is anywhere near that 50 posted, expect 40 or more out of the Gophers and an easy cover. The Bulls defense is in no condition to slow the Gophers' playmakers, and the Buffalo organization is generally ill-equipped to compete in a decent Big-10 school's stadium in its first game of the year when the program itself is in such disarray. Gophers roll.
SPORTS WAGERS
Boston +124 over N.Y. YANKEES
Eduardo Rodriguez was whacked in his last start. In fact, he’s 0-1 in his last three starts with a 6.11 ERA and now the market is selling him because of it. We’re buying because those surface stats tell a fraction of the story. Truth be told, Rodriguez has been outstanding with a BB/K split of 8/30 over his past 30 innings. Those poor surface stats recently are the direct result of two luck-driven factors, a low 61% strand rate and a high .334 BABIP. Rodriguez is dealing it with a 14% swing and miss rate and a 53%/16% groundball/line-drive split over his last three games. All told, Rodriguez gives up less than a hit per inning, he has an elite overall BB/K split of 38/114 over 105 frames and he’s a much better option taking back a price than C.C. Sabathia is spotting one.
Sabathia draws the opener in New York’s key four-game series with the Red Sox and while Sabathia has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts (10-5 – 3.82 ERA), there is nothing in his skill set suggesting he’s improved that much. His groundball/line-drive/fly-ball split over his last 10 games is 47%/28%/25%. Notice the 28% line-drive rate. That’s extremely high. His swing and miss rate is low at 8%. His BB/K split of 40/90 over 115 innings is mediocre at best. Follow Sabathia’s trend in just about any skill area xERA, control, command, first-pitch strike rate, swinging strikes or batted ball profile and there’s reason to worry. No matter how you break it down, C.C. is the second best starter in this matchup and it sure doesn’t hurt Boston’s chances that the Yanks were on the wrong end of a DH sweep yesterday against the Indians while the Red Sox were heating up in Toronto.
BALTIMORE -1½ +145 over Toronto
The Orioles took a lot of heat at the deadline for giving up future assets for pitcher Jeremy Hellickson from the Phillies in order to prop up this year's team. All the experts said that Hellickson was no better than the pitcher he was going to replace in Baltimore’s rotation. The experts were also baffled as to why the O’s weren’t selling instead of buying, citing that they would need a major surge to get into Wildcard contention. Fast forward a month and the O’s are in the midst of a major surge with Hellickson winning three of the five games he’s started in his new digs. Baltimore is now just a mere 1½-games back of the Twinkies for the final Wildcard spot with plenty of baseball left to play.
Hellickson’s improvements are not outwardly obvious in his profile, as his ERA with Baltimore is 5.46 and it was 4.73 with the Phillies. However, that 5.46 mark is a small five-game sample size and two bad outing in five games will do that. Pay more attention to his 4.36 xERA. Hellickson is coming off a strong seven-inning, four-hit, three run start against the Red Sox. He’s also thrown a seven-inning, five-hit shutout against the Royals in his new uniform. In 30 innings with Baltimore, Hellickson has walked a miniscule four batters with 20 K’s. That’s a 5-1 ratio. Leaning on his changeup more has yielded big results, particularly v righties. He’s altered his pitch mix and the return of his command is reminiscent of his 2010-2012 glory days. His career HR issues are a reminder that this can blow up quickly but we’re not going to worry about that here. Hellickson is pitching well, he has great career numbers against current Jays (.221 BAA in 104 AB’s) and the O’s are one of the hottest teams in the league that are seeing beach balls at the dish.
Writing about what Marco Estrada can’t do is becoming redundant. We were probably the first to tell you that he was a blowup artist waiting to happen and nothing has changed. We said the same thing about Jordan Zimmermann, Yovani Gallardo and a bunch of others over the years and that hasn’t changed either. Sabermetrics in baseball works better than in any other sport and is the main focus of what we study. The advanced stats still say that Estrada’s weak skills will continue to allow the opposition to put up some crooked numbers. Estrada’s groundball rate of 29.2% is the worst among qualified pitchers. His 1.42 HR’s allowed per nine innings is also one of the worst marks in baseball. Combine those two marks at this park against a team that is hitting everything and this start looks like one in which Estrada is going to need to get extremely lucky to make it past the fifth inning without allowing five or six runs. The Jays’ last ditch efforts to get back into the race went out the window when they were swept by the Red Sox to run their losing streak to four. Current form and state of mind hugely favor the O’s too.
MILWAUKEE -1½ +183 over Washington
Zach Davies is a hit and miss starter that will bring his 3.91/4.58 ERA/xERA into this game. There are some good signs in Davies’ profile and there are some bad ones too. He's struck out only 15 percent of the batters he's faced, down from 20 percent in 2016 and he has reached double digit swinging strikes just twice in his last 12 starts. He displayed stellar control a season ago but has been allowing more walks so far in 2017 for a variety of reasons. He's throwing fewer first pitch strikes, a lower percentage of strikes overall, and he's getting batters to swing at fewer pitches out of the strike zone (30% in 2016, 26% this year). That’s the bad. The good is that Davies’ swinging strikes, ball% and first-pitch strike rate have all risen over his last three games. He’s also doing a nice job of keeping the ball on the ground with a 48% rate. All of that is just a preview into his profile because to us, it means jack for this one start.
Our focus here is that Gio Gonzalez is 9-3 on the road with a 2.91 ERA and he’s 3-0 over his last three starts with a 0.93 ERA (!) The market will love that. Gonzalez also pitches for a team that is leading its division by 15 games. In 26 starts, Gonzalez has lost just five times and comes in with a Kershaw-like 2.40 ERA. At the time of this writing, Milwaukee was favored and we have to question why. We also have to ask why anyone would be interested in spotting a price on Milwaukee with Davies going against the Nationals with Gonzalez going. A large percentage of the bets are coming in on Washington, yet the number is not moving one bit. Eventually, the market will move the number but that’s not relevant either. Recognizing a spot like this is important to long term success. It can save you a bet if you were enticed to bet Washington or win you a bet if you trust that Milwaukee is “supposed to” win this game even if they don’t. The line screams Milwaukee and we always want to be on the same side as the books when something looks as fishy as this one. We’ve also written about Gonzalez’s extreme luck recently but we’ll elaborate more on that when it’s called for. Right now, this wager is about not falling into a trap and being on the same side as the books. We’ll also go for the kill and spot an extra half run with a big take-back.
Antony Dinero
Tulsa at Oklahoma State
Play: Oklahoma St -17.5
Both teams prefer to play at a extremely fast pace, and the Golden Hurricane are looking to get their quarterbacks as many looks as possible so don't expect them to sit on the ball even when blown out. Tulsa simply didn't face any one of Mason Rudolph's caliber at quarterback last year and returns a defense missing key pieces that's going to get lit up. Lay the points and back Oklahoma State.
Harry Bondi
OHIO STATE (-21) over Indiana
During his tenure at Ohio State, Urban Meyer has always had his team ready to play in Week 1, going 5-0 straight up with those wins coming by more than 33 points per game. He will put even more emphasis on this year’s opener since it’s against a conference foe that gave his team a huge scare the last time it played in Indiana. Despite that narrow loss in 2015, the Hoosiers have dropped 22 straight to Ohio State. The schedule-makers weren’t kind to Indiana in forcing them to play a Top 5 team in the season opener since they will be breaking in a new head coach, offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator. Adding fuel to OSU’s motivation is the fact that Kevin Wilson, who was forced to resign last year as head coach at Indiana, is their new offensive coordinator and won’t mind tacking on a few late scores to make a statement. Lay the points!
Carmine Bianco
Colombia at Venezuela
lay: Colombia -146
Far from a gimmie when any of these teams meeting in WCQ action as evident to Argentina losing to both Bolivia and Paraguay so Colombia won't take the hosts for granted but anything short of 3 points here which would keep them in 2nd in the group and one foot into door for Russia 2018 would be a disappointment especially with Brazil coming to visit next week. This Colombian side have won 2 straight after defeats to Brazil and Argentina and won the reverse fixture at home 2-0 and the scoreline didn't match the statistical edge held by the home side. Colombia win here as the free play and looking forward to next weeks meeting with Brazil.
Larry Ness
St. Louis vs. San Francisco
Pick: San Francisco -107
The 53-82 Giants are in last-place in the NL West (games back of the Dodgers) and own MLB's worst moneyline mark at minus-$3449. They will host the 66-66 Cardinals in a four-game series at AT&T Park this weekend, beginning tonight. The Cards are curently six games back of the Cubs in the NL Central and 5 1/2 games back of the Rockies, who own the NL's second wild card spot. I doubt the Cardinals have given up hope that they are still capable of a late playoff push. If so, they had better win at least three of four, here.
Michael Wacha (9-7, 4.33 ERA) owns a 1.50 ERA in five career starts against the Giants but he's just 1-0 and the team 3-2. Of more relevance, he limps into this contest on a three-game losing streak, having allowed 14 ERs on 24 hits over a mere 12.1 innings (10.22 ERA!). Sure, Bumgarner is just 3-6 on the season and the Giants are 3-10 in his 13 starts, giving him MLB's second-worst moneyline mark at minus-1248. However, he owns a 2.73 ERA in five August starts on on the season, owns a 1.04 WHIP and .227 BAA to go along with his 2.85 ERA. Bumgarner is LOOONG overdue.
Will Rogers
Texas vs. Houston
Pick: Houston
The set-up: The Texas Rangers suffered the indignity of a three-game sweep at the hands of the last-place Oakland Athletics on their home field this past weekend but are now a win away this afternoon, from sweeping he AL-best Houston Astros in a three-game series being played at Tropicana Field in Tampa, due to Hurricane Harvey. The 79-53 Astros still own a commanding 11-game game lead in the AL West over the Angels (Rangers trail by 13 games) but while Texas won't/can't catch Houston, the 66-66 Rangers are still in the thick of the wild-card chase, three games behind the Minnesota Twins for the final American League playoff spot.
The pitching matchup: Nick Martinez (3-5 & 5.26) will start for Texas and Collin McHugh (2-2 & 3.63 ERA) for Houston. Martinez has spent the season being sent up and down between the majors and Triple-A but is coming off a quality start, throwing seven innings Friday at Oakland and giving up three runs in a 3-1 loss. Martinez has pitched well against Houston, going 3-2 with a 3.24 ERA in 10 games against the Astros, including six starts (team is 4-2). McHugh got a late start to the year due to injury and this marks just his eighth start of the season (first didn't come until July 22). McHugh has had success against the Rangers in his career, producing a 4-1 record despite a 5.30 ERA in seven career starts (team is 5-2). He has not faced Texas this season.
The pick; No real reason to trust Martinez, while McHugh seems to finding a groove, allowing just one ER on nine hits in 12 innings (0.75 ERA) over his last two starts, both of which were wins. No sweep here, Play Houston.