Free Picks: Service Plays for Friday, September 20

Dr. BobFOR FREE SERVICE PLAYS VISIT THESPREAD.COM
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FRESNO STATE (-4½) 37 Boise State 30SERVICE PLAYS VISIT THESPREAD.COM
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I’ll certainly be rooting for Fresno State here, as one of my season win bets was on Boise State Under 10 wins and a loss tonight would assure that I can’t lose that bet. This was one of the games that I thought Boise State was likely to lose before the season started (the others being Washington, at Utah State and at BYU) and it’s even more likely now.
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Boise State’s offense is about as good as I thought it would be, which is 0.3 yards per play better than average, but the Broncos’ defense can’t stop the pass. Boise has allowed 7.8 yards per pass play to 3 teams that would combine to average only 5.8 yppp against an average team. I don’t expect Boise to continue to be that bad against the pass but they certainly look below average in that category and Fresno State has a quarterback that can take advantage of that.
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Fresno State’s offense hasn’t been as explosive as it was last season, as quarterback Derek Carr has made a habit of looking for underneath passes rather than throwing the ball down the field. That has led to a horrible 8.9 yards per completion (11.9 ypc last season) and Fresno has averaged only 5.4 yppl in two games, including just 5.0 yppl last week against Cal Poly. It’s extremely likely that Carr’s yards per completion will be much better going forward and I still rate Fresno’s attack a bit better than average despite being below average so far this season.
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Fresno State is also better than average defensively. However, their opening game performance against Rutgers was disappointing (a 52-51 OT win as a 9 ½ point favorite). The offense performed as expected in that game but the Bulldogs’ defense gave up 545 yards at 7.6 yppl to a mediocre Rutgers’ offense. I’m not too worried about the 416 yards at 5.5 yppl that they allowed to Cal Poly two weeks ago since the starting defense only gave up 3.1 yppl and were up 41-3 before the subs started playing. There are indications that Fresno’s defense isn’t as good as I thought it would be (I had them rated at 0.4 yppl better than average heading into the season) but I’ll still rate them slightly better than average despite their horrible performance against Rutgers.
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My preseason ratings had Fresno State by 4 points in this game and my current ratings favor the Bulldogs by 6½ points. I’ll lean with Fresno State minus the points.

Jimmy Boyd

Texas Rangers +118

The Rangers are playing to protect their lead atop the Wild Card standings, and I don't think they let this game slip away to Kansas City who is sitting three games back. Martin Perez has been great this year, posting a 3.64 ERA and a 9-5 record in his 17 starts. Perez should have a big game since Kansas City has struggled against left-handed pitchers this season. The Royals have a .248 batting average and have scored just 3.8 runs per game against lefties.

Ervin Santana is an overrated pitcher. He has a decent ERA, but he rarely leaves the game putting his team in position to pick up a win. That has resulted in a mediocre 9-9 overall record, and 4-4 record at home. In his last three starts the Royals are 1-2 as a team. While the Rangers have not scored a huge number of runs this season, their 4.5 runs per game on the road is certainly good enough to beat this Royals team.

Jim Feist

Houston Astros +205

Houston has finally found some arms, and Brett Oberholtzer (4-3, 2.98 ERA) has been very good, walking only 9 batters in 60+ innings. He has 39 Ks and fewer hits than innings pitched. He is 2-1 with a 2.93 ERA in five appearances (four starts) away from home. Cleveland needs the game, but Zach McAllister (7-9) is struggling, with an 0-2 record and an 8.78 ERA his last three starts. McAllister has allowed at least four runs in three of his last four starts, so grab the live dog.

Nick Parsons

Detroit Tigers -1½

With a chance to hit the 20-win plateau and facing an inferior opponent, I look for the home sides' ace to deliver the goods and help propel his team to a convincing victory.

Andre Rienzo (2-2, 5.04 ERA)

Rienzo got shelled in a loss to the Tribe on Saturday, allowing five runs off seven hits with four walks over four innings in his team's eventual 8-0 setback.

The rookie has now given up five earned runs or more in three of his last four starts.

Max Scherzer (19-3, 2.95 ERA)

Scherzer gave up one run over seven innings, striking out 12 while walking one and allowing just five hits vs. the Royals on Sunday. Unfortunately Scherzer was saddled with a no-decision, although his team would go on to win 3-2.

Note that Scherzer has been almost unbeatable at home this season, 11-1 with a very respectable 3.49 ERA.

The Bottom Line

The Tigers are looking to keep the momentum rolling after yesterday's 5-4 win over the Mariners.

This is a horrible matchup for the visitors which have lost 10 of 16 in this series.

Detroit has a healthy lead on the Indians, but with a victory it will inch ever closer to finally securing its third-straight division title.

Consider laying the 1.5 runs and the reasonable price in this clear mismatch.

Rob Vinciletti

Colorado Rockies -133

Colorado applies to a system direct from the database that has won 10 of 11 times and plays on home favorites off a 1 run home win, vs an opponent off a 1 run home dog loss like Arizona. Colorado has won 16 of 24 on Friday. Arizona is 0-3 on the road off a home loss of late and has lost 7 of 10 on the road when the total is 9 to 9.5. In the series Colorado has won 5 of the last 7 here. Tonight they have J. Chacin making the start and he has won 11 of 16 home team starts and has won both here this year vs the Diamondbacks. Delgado goes for Arizona and he has a mediocre 4.80 road era and a 5.74 era over his last 3 starts. Look for Colorado to take the opener.

Steve Janus

Pittsburgh Pirates -106

I'm backing the Pirates at home in Game 1 of a crucial series against the Reds. Pittsburgh has won four of six at home over Cincinnati this season and you couldn't ask for a better starter to take the mound. Francisco Liriano is 8-1 with a 1.37 ERA and 0.990 WHIP in 10 starts at home (9-1 team record) this season.

Pittsburgh is 10-0 in home games after 7 or more consecutive home games this season. Liriano is 11-1 when the total is 7 or less over the last 3 seasons. Cincinnati is 1-5 in their last 6 road games vs a team with a winning record and 1-4 in Latos' last 5 road starts.

Rocketman

Texas @ Kansas City
Play: Kansas City

The Texas Rangers travel to Kansas City to take on the Royals on Friday night. Texas is struggling down the stretch going only 3-13 in the month of September this year. Texas is 11-23 this year when playing against a team with a winning record on the 2nd half of the season. Texas is scoring only 3.7 runs per game their past seven games overall where they have a team batting average of only .229. Kansas City is allowing only 2.7 runs per game their past seven games overall where teams have a combined batting average of only .225. Ervin Santana is 9-9 with a 3.23 ERA overall this year, 4-4 with a 3.42 ERA at home this season and 1-1 with a 3.71 ERA his last 3 starts. We'll recommend a small play on Kansas City tonight!

Larry Ness

Giants at Yankees
Prediction: Over

It surely wouldn’t have been unreasonable for Yankee fans to have looked ahead at the start of the 2013 season and secured tickets for a series between the Yankees and Giants (winners of TWO of the last three World series) for the weekend of Sep 20-22. However, those who did, are surely disappointed, as the Giants ‘limp’ into this series 71-82 and will become the first team to finish with a losing record the season after winning the World Series since St Louis did so in 2007. As for the Yankees, they’ve lost FIVE of their last six, to drop 3 1/2 games behind Tampa Bay for the final American League wild-card spot.

Making matters worse, for New York is that it has only NINE games left to close the gap and has THREE other teams to overtake if it wants to qualify for the playoffs for the 18th time in 19 seasons (NOT!). The pitching matchup features two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum vs CC Sabathia, a Cy Young winner himself with the Indians (2007), plus one of MLB’s top starters since joining New York (led Yankees to the 2009 World Series title).

However, we won’t be seeing the Lincecum and Sabathia of years past tonight, but rather the very disappointing 2013 versions of these once-outstanding pitchers. Lincecum has NOT bounced back this season, as many anticipated. He had an awful 2012, going 10-15 with a 5.18 ERA but in five postseason relief appearances, had a win and a hold, while allowing just one ER on three hits with 17 Ks in 13.2 innings for an 0.66 ERA. However, Lincecum comes in with a 10-13 record and a 4.40 ERA in 30 starts (team is 14-16 ).

As for Sabathia, he did all the Yanks could have asked of him in his first four seasons with the club, going 75-30 (.714) from 2009-2012, as the Yanks wre an impressive 85-44 (.659) in his starts (regular season). However, his 2013 season has been less than spectacular, to be kind. He’s been just awful since the All Star break, posting a 6.58 ERA in his 11 starts. EIGHT of those 11 have gone “over the total” and that’s where I’m heading here, as the Giants have scored 13 and 19 runs in Lincecum’s last two road starts. No pitchers duel tonight in the Bronx!

Doug Upstone

Boise State vs. Fresno State
Play: Boise State +4

Play On road underdogs like Boise State with an offense averaging 450 or more total yards a game, after gaining 7.25 or more yards a play in their previous contest. In the past four years, this incredible football system is 30-6 ATS, 83.3 percent.

SPORTS WAGERS

San Francisco +130 over N.Y. YANKEES

The Giants have seen and done it all over the past few seasons. They’ve won World Championships, they’ve been in pennant races and playoff series and they also have some of the best talent in the majors. What they haven’t done is play at Yankee Stadium as a team since 2002. The Giants make the short trip from Citi Field to Yankee Stadium and they would love nothing more than to make life even more miserable for Alex Rodriguez and the rest of the Yankees. The Yanks have lost five of six and have failed to score more than four runs in any of those games at hitter friendly Boston and Toronto. The Giants come in playing their best ball of the year. They’ve won five of six and 10 of their past 15 games. The Giants have also scored 41 times over their past six games and they’ve scored an incredible 32 runs in Tim Lincecum’s last two starts. They may get a bunch more here against C.C. Sabathia.

After years of consistent production, Sabathia has seen his ERA bloat way above 4.00 (4.90) for the first time since 2005. He's thrown 200+ innings each of the previous six seasons and that heavy workload has finally caught up to him.His velocity declined from 93.6 mph to 92.4 mph from '11 and '12, and he's lost another tick this season (91 mph). At the same time, he's throwing his slider less, so Sabathia is relying even more heavily on his depleted fastball and as a result, his strikeout rate has taken a hit. What's most troubling is Sabahia’s hard hit ball %, which is at a career-high 34%, suggesting he's become more hittable and his .273 oppBA confirms that assumption. Sabathia’s WHIP over his past five games is 1.44 a mark he hasn’t seen in a decade. C.C. Sabathia is running on fumes.

COLORADO -1½ +157 over Arizona

Mentally speaking, the Diamondbacks are in a bad sport here. Arizona just completed what seemed like a season ending four game set with the Dodgers. The Snakes played to huge crowds over those four games and they also played their hearts out in an attempt to prevent the Dodgers from clinching in their house. Last night’s game came down to the final out but the Dodgers eventually clinched with a 7-6 win. The four-game set was as intense and draining as a playoff series and now the D-Backs have to hit the road with their season finally put to rest. So forget the pitching matchups and everything else in terms of stats, as this wager has nothing to do with that. This is a situational play that screams to fade the Diamondbacks because they are going to show up in body only after that emotional “season-ending” series against the Dodgers.

CHICAGO (5 innings) +111 over Atlanta

The Braves lead in the NL East is not in jeopardy. Atlanta will let nature take its course and clinch sometime over the next few days. That’s inevitable. The Braves probably don’t even have to win another regular season game to clinch. The Braves will now set up their rotation for the playoffs and see what they have to work with.Paul Maholm gets the start here and he’s not the right guy to be spotting juice with on the road. Maholm recently returned from elbow issues that put him on the DL for a month. He has not had a dominant start since June 18. Maholm has a 5.86 ERA and a .291 BAA in 15 road starts in 83 IP and most of those starts came when he was feeling great. That’s not the case anymore. The Braves are three games under .500 on the road, where they score 3.95 runs per game and that’s when they were completely focused. That, too, is not the case here.

Scott Baker is a guy to keep on your radar for next season. Baker has been brilliant in two starts since returning from 2012 Tommy John surgery. In 11 IP, he has 5 K/1 BB, 1 ER, and a .139 oppBA. Baker’s line-drive rate over his two starts is a measly 14%, which further confirms that hitters are having a difficult time squaring up against him. Baker always been one of those frustrating big-skills, little results pitchers but TJ surgery could be the thing that puts him back on the map. Call back in 2014 for Baker because this is likely his last start of the season but for now, he’s fresh, he’s confident, he’s undervalued and he offers up tremendous value in this spot in a matinée game in Chicago. Because Baker is going to be monitored closely and because this bet is based on the starters, we’re playing the Cubbies in the first 5 innings only.

SPORTS WAGERS

Edmonton -3 over WINNIPEG

We see it over and over again in all sports that a team with talent on a long losing streak wins one game and subsequently wins the next one too. After eight consecutive losses, Edmonton got off the mattress and played 60 full minutes of defense en route to a nifty 25-7 home win over these same Bombers. One win does wonders for a team and now that they know they can win, expect Edmonton to be even better this week. Sure it’s on the road but Edmonton was not as sharp offensively as that final score suggests and with a huge edge at the QB position and a win under its belt, this is a cheap price to be spotting with the visitor.

Winnipeg turned the ball over four times last week. Eventually they replaced QB Justin Goltz with Max Hall and the revolving QB game continues this week with Max Hall now getting the start over Goltz but Hall is no better than the QB he replaced. At least when the Eskies were losing, they were losing by the slimmest of margins. The same can’t be said for the Blue Bombers. Winnipeg has dropped eight of its past nine games with six of those losses coming by 13 points or more. Of those six losses, five of them were by 16 points or more and that’s what you get when you don’t have stability at the QB position. Winnipeg would be much better served to stick with one guy to win or lose with but instead they choose to switch QB’s as soon as the going gets tough, whether it be from week to week or quarter to quarter. This is a great chance for the Eskies to keep it going. Part of winning is having the ability to sense a wounded prey and go in for the kill. If Mike Reilly is everything we think that he is, that’s precisely what he and the rest of the team will do here to this completely dysfunctional host.

Pass NCAAF

MLB Predictions

Oakland Athletics -1.5 +102

The A's took the first game of this four game series 8-6 last night, handing Minnesota their 7th loss in 9 games. Oakland on the other hand has won 7 of their last 9 games and lead the AL West. Tonight's starter vs Minnesota is Andrew Albers who has had a roller coaster start to his Major League career. He is 2-3 with a respectable 3.81 ERA over his first 8 starts, but he's also allowed 4+ earned runs in half of his starts. His latest start lasted just 4 innings where he gave up 6 hits and 4 earned runs. He will be facing an Oakland team that is 2nd in the Majors in team batting average in September (.286) and 2nd in OPS at .838. The A's will counter with Bartolo Colon who is 16-6 with a 2.73 ERA and 7-3 with a 2.74 ERA at home. He has been stellar as of late allowing just 3 earned runs over his last 4 starts with 18 strikeouts and just 2 walks over that span. Note that the A's are 19-7 in their last 26 overall, 18-6 in their last 24 vs AL Central opponents, 39-19 in their last 58 home games, and 14-5 in Colon's last 19 home starts. They've also taken 5 of their last 6 meetings at home vs the Twins. I like the A's to stay hot and Colon have another solid outing - I'm taking Oakland on the run line tonight.

San Francisco Giants Team Total Over 3.5

San Francisco comes into this one winners of 5 of their last 6 games. During that span they've scored 4+ runs 5 times and averaged 6.83 runs per game with a big 19-3 victory in there on Saturday. In September the Giants are 3rd in the Majors with a team .286 batting average and an OPS of .777 (5th). They will be facing CC Sabathia who has had a year to forget going 13-13 with a 4.90 ERA. In 11 starts since the All Star break the big lefty is 4-5 with a high 6.58 ERA, .298 OBA and 1.64 WHIP. In his latest start vs Boston he went 6 innings giving up 9 hits and 5 earned runs with 5 strikeouts and 4 walks. He has given up 3+ earned runs in 6 straight starts. Take note that the OVER is 9-3 in Sabathia's last 12 starts overall and 5-0 in his last 5 home starts. The OVER is also 7-1 in the Yankees last 8 home games. Instead of taking the OVER 8.5 in today's game I think we've got more value in taking the Giants team total over 3.5 laying a bit of chalk.

Harry Bondi

FRESNO STATE (-4) over Boise State

We are going to buck some impressive trends tonight and call for Fresno State to defeat Boise State for only the second time in the last 13 years! This years edition of the Boise State Broncos is not as strong as recent teams while Fresno has it's best team in many years. Boise got pounded by Washington 38-6 in week one and has since blown out weaklings Tennesse-Martin and Air Force. They step way up in class tonight to face the Bulldogs who are led by QB Derek Carr, younger brother of the former number one draft pick and Fresno great David Carr, who has been terrific so far this year. Carr has thrown for eight touchdowns and over 700 yards in just two games. Fresno's game against colorado was also postponed last week due to the flooding there giving the Bulldogs an extra week to get ready for Boise. It's major payback time for Fresno. Take the Bulldogs minus the points.

Bob Balfe

Arizona Diamondbacks +110

Both teams are eliminated from the postseason, but last night something interesting happened in Arizona. The Dodgers clinched the division and celebrated by jumping in the pool out in Arizona. This had to motivate this DBack team to finish the season strong. I don't think what the Dodgers did was disrespectful on any level however it lit a fire for this team which was only a few plays here and there from being in the postseason race. The Rockies actually didn't play that bad considering they are in the basement in the NL West, but that is a very good division. Take Arizona.