JR O'Donnell
2* Marlins / Astros Over 8
The Marlins will keep pounding the rock tonight as the young guns on the 61-60 Marlins have reeled off four W's in a row for the third time this season. Chris Volstad 6-9, 4.91 ERA gets the call tonight for the pesky Marlins. The Fla Marlins have young talent that is hitting the ball & the boys from Fla will tune up the Stros again. Let's look at the "JR O" Power ratings here on tonight's matchup. These ratings have this baby @ 9.8 runs. That a huge 1.8 over lay on tonight's MLB . The Marlins have more than doubled up the runs vs. the Stros at 84-40 the last 10 battles in Fla. Over is 5-1 in Volstads last 6 home starts and 12-1 in the last 13 meetings by these 2 ball clubs in Florida.
Larry Ness
Legend - Boston Red Sox
BIG AL
Preseason GOY - Rams
STREET ROSENTHAL
*200 Cleveland Browns -4
*200 San Diego Chargers -2.5
*200 Cincinnati Reds +100
*200 Atlanta Braves -155
*200 Florida Marlins -130
SEABASS
150* Boston Red Sox
100* LA Dodgers
100* Minnesota Twins Under
50* SF Giants
100* Steam NY Mets
The Duke's Sports
NY Mets Over (7') for 1.5 Units
This series has gone 20-8 O/U and 4-1 O/U in Pittsburgh. Tonight, we'll look for the Mets' lineup to follow up with another rare run producing effort, this time against James McDonald who controls a lofty 8.10 ERA in 4 relief appearances vs New York. The Pirates' starting pitching has been bad and McDonald, who has looked sharp since coming over from the Dodgers, should fall into the slumping circle. On the other hand, the Mets' starter -- Jonathon Niese-- has looked great recently, but Pittsburgh is batting a healthy .273 vs lefties and should drive in some runs. Niese is 4-1 O/U when the 'total' is set at 7 to 8'. Pittsburgh is 7-3 O/U in game 2 of a series, and 10-4 O/U as a home dog of +110 to +150.
3G Sports
Pitt -3.5
TB -2
ROCKETMAN
3* NY Giants
Lenny Del Genio
Cleveland Browns -3
The Browns started out strong in their first game in the new Holmgren regime. Holmgren got rid of the two stiff QB’s that were parading around under center in Cleveland, Quinn and Anderson. Delhomme and Wallace are the new signal callers in Cleveland and the Browns offense actually looked good against a pretty good Packer defense. In St. Louis Sam Bradford got his introduction to the NFL and it wasn’t pretty. The number one overall pick was a bit nervous as he short armed a pitchout to a back and bobbled a snap. He did complete 6 of this 13 passing attempts but was running for his life as he was sacked four times. Hopefully, Bradford doesn’t get killed behind this St. Louis offensive line. The Rams other QB’s of Feeley, Null, and Lewis aren’t such an impressive group, so they’re hoping that Bradford can get ready to play sooner than later. The Rams are pretty far away from being competitive. The Browns McCoy was hurt last week and won’t play this week much, or at all, which is good thing for the Browns giving more playing time to Delhomme and Wallace. Browns blowout out the Rams!
Marc Lawrence
Dallas Cowboys -3
The Dallas Cowboys meet the Chargers in San Diego this evening in a most desirable winning situation. For openers, our powerful database reminds us that Game Two home favorites of three or more points in the NFL preseason off a SU and ATS win hosting an opponent off a SU and ATS home loss are 2-18 ATS in this role since 1983, including 0-18 ATS if they did not cover the spread by more than 25 points in its win and the opponent scored 24 or fewer points in its loss. That fades San Diego. In addition, Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips is 4-1 SU and ATS in his NFL head coaching career in preseason games when playing off a SU favorite loss, including 3-0 SU and ATS when facing an opponent off a win in this role. Grab the points here tonight. We recommend a 2-unit play on Dallas.
Tony George
Pittsburgh -4
Line swing by 6 points, well yes. NY Giants may not mount much of an offense against Pitt with Manning and Sorgi both out in this game. Although the Jets first team hammered away at the Giants, the second and third teams turned the Giants / Jets game into a blowout, that will not happen here with Pitt playing 3 good QBs including a Big Ben appearance. I have no doubts Pitt will stress defense and NY will struggle on offense. Play 1 Unit on Pittsburgh.
Evan Altemus
5 Units Tampa Bay -2.5
Kansas City is a complete mess right now. Players are disgruntled because head coach Todd Haley has made all players with four years or less experience stay in hotels instead of on their own. Also, players feel that it doesn’t matter what head coach Todd Haley thinks about their performance because they think that Scott Pioli controls all personnel decisions. In addition, back-up quarterback Brodie Croyle is banged up, which has prompted Kansas City to bring in former Pittsburgh Panther quarterback Bill Stull into camp. Third stringer quarterback Tyler Palko has been awful as well. The Chiefs aren’t going to risk starting quarterback Matt Cassel get hurt behind a bad offensive line, so he will only be playing limited snaps. In addition, coaches Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis don’t want to show anything for the regular season, so their game plan will be basic. Tampa Bay lost their first preseason game, so I expect them to have more motivation for this game. They have a decent two quarterback rotation with Josh Johnson and Josh Freeman. Kansas City will also have to play in the humid weather of Tampa Bay, which they have not been used to. Look for the Buccaneers to get the win and cover.
3 Units Cleveland -3
This line has jumped from -3 to -4, but the line movement is in the right direction. St. Louis will have Sam Bradford and A.J. Feeley take most, if not all, of the snaps in this game. I expect both of them to have problems in this game because the Browns defense is expected to develop more of a blitzing game plan and attack the quarterback more. Bradford is a rookie and isn't used to seeing NFL blitzes while Feeley doesn't deal well with the blitz anyway. After seeing the Browns in the first week of the preseason, they are more focused than the average team. Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace will get the majority of the snaps in this game, especially with Colt McCoy being banged up. Minnesota's Sage Rosenfels was able to throw all over St. Louis, and the Vikings were easily able to put up 28 points against them. Look for Cleveland to want this game and use their vastly better quarterback rotation to get an easy win.
Nick "BookieKiller" Parsons
10* Green Bay / Seattle Under 38.5
For a number of different reasons I believe the value in this contest is on the "under":
Green Bay saw the total go "under" the number in just one of its four 2009 pre-season contests; in Week 1 of the 2010 pre-season it lost 27-24 to the Browns as the total went way above the posted number of 34.
The pre-season is a time for teams to work on inefficiencies and its very obvious that the Packers will be focusing on the defense the rest of the way.
It's missing key contributors like LB Clay Matthews and CB Al Harris; “We’re not happy at all,” Charles Woodson said.
"The Browns drove the ball downfield on us the first series, 80 yards (for a touchdown)," Woodson lamented. "We had those type of games last year, and we can't allow that to happen again this year. There's some things we're going to have to fix. Defensively, we're not at all happy with how we played."
Although they'll still be undermanned heading into Seattle, defensive coach Dom Capers will have a much better defensive plan in place this weekend; "Part of our plan was to let 'em go out there and play," Capers said. "We didn't do near as much (schematically), but that was part of the plan. But, that's no excuse. You've got to be able to execute sound, fundamental football with what you're doing. To me, that's the biggest thing. There's a lot of coaching to do off this (game) tape."
On the other side of the field: Seattle saw the total go "under" the number in two of four pre-season contests last season; it won 20-18 in the 2010 pre-season opener as the total went "over" the number by a FG.
Seattle was outscored 100 to 37 in the first quarter last year which led to a 5-11 campaign; that trend continued during its first exhibition game, as Tennessee's starters jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the opening quarter; suffice to say I expect this team to play with an extremely concerted effort on the defensive side of the ball this week against the explosive and opportunistic Green Bay offense.
Bottom line: It wasn't all doom and gloom for the 'Hawks defense though; it forced three turnovers for the game, including interceptions by cornerback Josh Wilson and safety Kam Chancellor, and a fumble recovery by linebacker Matt McCoy.
I expect each team to concentrate on the defensive end; when you couple that fact with the rest of the above information, I feel that this number is simply too high as we're getting fantastic value on the UNDER here;
Mike Neri Sports
3* Cleveland -4
3* Chicago -2
1 Unit Boston -135
Fredy Wills
Red Sox -135 (4-Dime POD)
Mets -120 (2-Dime)
Red Sox -1.5 +158(1-Dime)