Wednesday’s Betting Tips
By Covers.com
Weather to watch
Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics – 12 mph winds are expected to blow out to right-centerfield.
Who’s hot
NBA: Thunder are 6-1-1 ATS in their last eight games overall.
NHL: Kings are 9-1 in their last 10 playoff games as a favorite.
MLB: Home team is 5-0 in umpire Alfonso Marquez's last five games behind home plate. He's scheduled to work Wednesday's Royals-Twins matchup.
WNBA: Minnesota Lynx are 10-3 ATS in their last 13 games overall.
Who’s not
NBA: Spurs are 1-4 ATS in their last five road games.
NHL: Under is 1-4-1 in the Devils' last six road games.
MLB: The Chicago Cubs are 0-4 in Paul Maholm's last four starts.
WNBA: Seattle Storm are 1-10 ATS in the last 11 meetings with Minnesota.
Key stat
8.5 – The New Jersey Devils have just three power-play goals over the last two series, spanning 35 chances with a man advantage (8.5 percent) and have yet to connect with the man advantage in the Stanley Cup finals. The Devils failed to score on any of their six power plays in Game 3’s shutout loss to Los Angeles and are set as +170 underdogs in Wednesday’s Game 4.
Injury that shouldn’t be overlooked
Aramis Ramirez, Milwaukee Brewers – Ramirez sat out his second straight game Tuesday with a strained left quad injury and reportedly isn’t close to 100 percent. He’s hitting just .240 but has five homers and 30 RBI in the middle of the Brewers’ order.
Game of the day
San Antonio Spurs at Oklahoma City Thunder (-5, 201.5)
Notable quotable
“You know, championship teams win on the road, and Oklahoma City just did that. So they've proven they're a championship caliber team. We have to go do that. If we can't win on Wednesday, we're not a championship caliber team. It's as simple as that. You look at anybody who's won championships, and they've won on the road as the process goes along. It's what you do. And they just did it. So we need to do the same thing to hold serve." – San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich ahead of Game 6.
Notes and tips
The Seattle Mariners send struggling starter Heator Noesi to the mound Wednesday against the Los Angeles Angels on just three days’ rest. Seattle was forced to skip Felix Hernandez in the rotation this time around as the ace deals with a sore back, forcing Noesi to move up. He hasn’t won a start in a full month and gave up three homers and six earned runs before getting the hook after 4 1/3 innings on Saturday. Seattle opened around +140 for Wednesday's game.
The Minnesota Lynx are closing in on the best record to start a season in WNBA history. Minnesota has won its first seven of the year – two away from tying the mark set by the 2001 and 2003 L.A Sparks - but the Lynx feel like they need to be better. They have dropped three of their last five against the number. "We're going to have to clean it up; we're not going to just rest on 'Yeah, we got the win," Maya Moore told reporters recently. "When we play at our best we feel unstoppable, and we still haven't played at our best." Minnesota is a 12-point favorite Wednesday at home to Seattle.