RetroVK
This claim is disputed
ok yesterday i didnt like too much .... but today i do ... and i like some big dogs that i think have value. lets take a look....
reds/pirates over 8.5 EVEN --I look for a high scoring affair in this game. Bronson Arroyo takes the mound for the reds and i think he peaked two years ago. He has not exactly pitched great , 10.2 innings 9 r , 7 er 4 bb and 11 so . He is a flyball pitcher and so far this year a lot of those flyballs have left the yard. He has given up 5 hr in those 10.2 innings. Both of these games were at home in a hitters park but pittsbugh isnt exactly a pitchers dream either. last year he pitched 10 innings vs pitt giving up 13 hits and 7 er. What i like even more is that the two main rbi guys for the pirates really see him well. laroche is batting .310 against him and jason bay has owned him limited at bats going .429. Even mientkiewicz hits him well beating arroyo 5 of 6 times. Now , there are some things pointing to the arroyo side as well that we should atleast consider ... first , pirates are not batting well right now , second arroyo is a better away pitcher than home pitcher , a better night pitcher than day , and a decent april guy last year... third the worst part of his 10.2 innings came in cincy , he actually pitched well in the road game at pitt. So lets look at the other guy taking the hill in this game .. ian snell. I like him , good solid pitcher. The reds like him too. They bat .310 against him as a team. Valentin is 9/16 with 2 hr , griffey is 6/11 1 hr , and encarnacion is 6/17 and has put the ball in play in every at bat against snell. Dunn has not hit snell well ... just 2 of 17 but when he does hit him the ball goes a long ways .. 1 was a homer and 1 was a double. Also in looking over snells stats against this lineup he pitches scared to griffey and dunn .. the two big lefty bats ...9 walks in 37 plate appearances. snell pitched well vs cincy in two of three starts last year but was rocked in the other one .. which was also the most recent game ...it's no secret that the reds hit righties well. Also note that even though both starters pitched well on friday that there was a delay and so both teams had to use guys out of the bullpen ... guys like weathers and grabow...... they pitched a combined 6.2 innings from the bullpen. So makes it nice if we get into those. The weather forecast right now gives a decent chance of rain for tomorrow as well... again if delayed at any point ... we get to the taxed bp all the quicker. it also calls for the wind to be about 15 mph blowing out to left. that would be perfect, though counting on wind strength and direction this far prior to first pitch is sketchy at best.. There is another factor that i sometimes take a look at that cant really be quantified but this is the game that both teams had to look at for this series and think they could succeed. The following days matchup has trouble written all over it for these two teams.... cueto/gorzelanny. Cueto stuff is just nasty to anyone who has not seen it yet and the reds cant hit lefties and i think gorzelanny is fairly quality. So to get rbi , hits etc ... this is the game. do not know who the umpire is yet for this one but i will take my chances with the over 8.5
marlins/astros under 9.5 ---Backe has already pitched two pretty decent games away from home in losses to the cubs and the padres. For the year he has pitched 11 innings , 11 hits , 4 er. Not bad .... he has tried to be too fine at times and it has caused his pitch count to be high. The marlins basically have not seen this kid pitch. gonzalez and helms have seen him a combined 6 times garnering 1 hit but that is it. Hate to preach it again , but that is a big advantage for the pitcher. Last year at home Backe pitched 17 innings , gave up just 16 hits and allowed 8 runs. In two of his three starts he gave up 2 or less. His 2006 starts at home he gave up 1, 5, 1 and 3 runs. He likes to pitch in minute maid. The astros face a similar problem with andrew miller ... they havent seen him .. only darin erstad has seen him at all ... a total of 3 ab. I love this. I certainly dont love his recent form as he got rocked by both the nats and the mets giving up 11 runs in 7.2 innings pitched. But i think we can expect a bounce back here as a bad performance might cost him a spot in the rotation. At times he has pitched really well on the road. in 2007 he gave up 2 earned runs or less in 4 of his 7 road starts and 5 of his 7 road starts went under the posted total. So i think i have two teams here that are not the greatest hitting clubs in the national league , who have not seen the opposing pitcher at all and a number set at 9.5. why not?
orioles +105 -- Just like the matchups here a lot. Cabrera has held the rays bats to just .255 against him in 145 total AB. He had four starts against tampa bay last year, i bolded the one in tampa
6 innings 8 hits 6 runs
7 innings 1 hit 0 runs
7 innings 4 hits 1 run
6 innings 5 hits 3 runs
Cabrera LOVES pitching away from home ... if he does not have the largest disparity in favor of away starts vs home starts , i dont know who does. His era at home in 2007 was 6.42 , His era on the road in 2007 was 4.26 OVER A TWO RUN DIFFERENCE. love it love it love it.
So lets look at his opponent in Hammel. In 47 looks the orioles have touched him for 17 hits including 3 homers. Roberts hits him , hernandez hits him , markakis hits him, and huff is 1 for 3 with a homer. In his lone start vs the orioles in 2007 he went 6 innings , 6 hits , 5 er , 3 homers. He has now given up 4 runs or more in 8 of his last 12 starts dating back to last year. In addition, he rarely goes innings. Last year Hammel failed to go more than 5.1 innings in 10 of his 14 starts. This is important because tampas pen threw 48 pitches over 4 different guys out of the bullpen
so we get one guy who has shown shutdown ability , especially on the road, and against this specific team , who consistently burns innings versus a guy who consistently fails to pitch innings , with a somewhat depleted bullpen , and bad splits vs the opposing bats. ummm yeah i think i will bet this.
rangers +130 --I am sure this will not be a popular pick but i have good reasons for it. Lets start by saying that i believe halladay is at the beginning of his decline. It isnt just me saying it either , the blue jays organization said in the spring that he had lost some velocity. He has actually looked pretty average so far this year ... he went 8 innings , 8 hits and 4 er vs the bosox and he went 7 innings 7 hits and 3 er at the yankees. Normally i would say those are pretty decent starts against those lineups but both the red sox and yanks batters are off to slow starts. He also gave up 4 hr in those 15 innings pitched. And guess what ..... he really is not that consistent a stud pitcher on the road lately. He has given up 4 runs or more in half of his last 14 starts on the road........ and he HATES small parks. Check out his last bunch of starts in hitters parks ....
sep 26 at baltimore .........................7 innings 11 hits 5 runs
sep 4 at boston .............................8 innings 9 hits 5 runs
jul 12 at boston .............................5 innings 8 hits 5 runs
jun 25 at minny ( maybe neutral ) ...7 innings 6 hits 5 runs
may 5 at texas ..............................5.1 innings , 12 hits 9 runs
apr 24 at boston ...........................8 innings , 5 hits , 3 runs
i bolded the game at texas ..... Does this look like the dominant road pitcher most people likely think he is ??? he doesnt perform in hitters parks. the rangers bat over .300 as a team against him and young , blalock , broussard , laird , and bradley all bat over .300 against him.
Meanwhile we have one of the situations i like on the other side of the equation with luis mendoza taking the hill for the rangers. the blue jays have not seen him at all. a total of 3 ab with zero base knocks. The blue jays are also the worst in the american league vs righty pitching .... and now like i said they get a righty that they havent seen before. The oddsmakers are tricking a lot of saturday casual fans with this line gamg. "Halladay against some guy i have never heard of ??? the blue jays are better than the rangers !! And look !!!! I only have to lay 50 cents !!! " . Do not buy into it ... the rangers are the play.
a few games that i like slightly less but will likely be playing with some quick blurbs
cubs +150 --- cubs are a good club and phillies bat just .153 off of lilly. Price seems right to take a shot even against a hot cole hamels that i have a lot of respect for.
minny/kc over -- bonser and tomko dont put the fear of god into hitters and these teams wont be scoring runs on sunday when liriano and bannister go at it. likely the runs come here.
giants -120 -- cards have only 11 ab against cain and have not gotten a hit. Should i mention the pitcher advantage when he hasnt been seen again ? his fastball should look all the faster after watching zito slowballs all night friday. not interested in laying much more than 25 cents here though
that took a long time to type and i suck at typing so any grammar or typos you will just have to forgive.
good luck on saturday bases gang
reds/pirates over 8.5 EVEN --I look for a high scoring affair in this game. Bronson Arroyo takes the mound for the reds and i think he peaked two years ago. He has not exactly pitched great , 10.2 innings 9 r , 7 er 4 bb and 11 so . He is a flyball pitcher and so far this year a lot of those flyballs have left the yard. He has given up 5 hr in those 10.2 innings. Both of these games were at home in a hitters park but pittsbugh isnt exactly a pitchers dream either. last year he pitched 10 innings vs pitt giving up 13 hits and 7 er. What i like even more is that the two main rbi guys for the pirates really see him well. laroche is batting .310 against him and jason bay has owned him limited at bats going .429. Even mientkiewicz hits him well beating arroyo 5 of 6 times. Now , there are some things pointing to the arroyo side as well that we should atleast consider ... first , pirates are not batting well right now , second arroyo is a better away pitcher than home pitcher , a better night pitcher than day , and a decent april guy last year... third the worst part of his 10.2 innings came in cincy , he actually pitched well in the road game at pitt. So lets look at the other guy taking the hill in this game .. ian snell. I like him , good solid pitcher. The reds like him too. They bat .310 against him as a team. Valentin is 9/16 with 2 hr , griffey is 6/11 1 hr , and encarnacion is 6/17 and has put the ball in play in every at bat against snell. Dunn has not hit snell well ... just 2 of 17 but when he does hit him the ball goes a long ways .. 1 was a homer and 1 was a double. Also in looking over snells stats against this lineup he pitches scared to griffey and dunn .. the two big lefty bats ...9 walks in 37 plate appearances. snell pitched well vs cincy in two of three starts last year but was rocked in the other one .. which was also the most recent game ...it's no secret that the reds hit righties well. Also note that even though both starters pitched well on friday that there was a delay and so both teams had to use guys out of the bullpen ... guys like weathers and grabow...... they pitched a combined 6.2 innings from the bullpen. So makes it nice if we get into those. The weather forecast right now gives a decent chance of rain for tomorrow as well... again if delayed at any point ... we get to the taxed bp all the quicker. it also calls for the wind to be about 15 mph blowing out to left. that would be perfect, though counting on wind strength and direction this far prior to first pitch is sketchy at best.. There is another factor that i sometimes take a look at that cant really be quantified but this is the game that both teams had to look at for this series and think they could succeed. The following days matchup has trouble written all over it for these two teams.... cueto/gorzelanny. Cueto stuff is just nasty to anyone who has not seen it yet and the reds cant hit lefties and i think gorzelanny is fairly quality. So to get rbi , hits etc ... this is the game. do not know who the umpire is yet for this one but i will take my chances with the over 8.5
marlins/astros under 9.5 ---Backe has already pitched two pretty decent games away from home in losses to the cubs and the padres. For the year he has pitched 11 innings , 11 hits , 4 er. Not bad .... he has tried to be too fine at times and it has caused his pitch count to be high. The marlins basically have not seen this kid pitch. gonzalez and helms have seen him a combined 6 times garnering 1 hit but that is it. Hate to preach it again , but that is a big advantage for the pitcher. Last year at home Backe pitched 17 innings , gave up just 16 hits and allowed 8 runs. In two of his three starts he gave up 2 or less. His 2006 starts at home he gave up 1, 5, 1 and 3 runs. He likes to pitch in minute maid. The astros face a similar problem with andrew miller ... they havent seen him .. only darin erstad has seen him at all ... a total of 3 ab. I love this. I certainly dont love his recent form as he got rocked by both the nats and the mets giving up 11 runs in 7.2 innings pitched. But i think we can expect a bounce back here as a bad performance might cost him a spot in the rotation. At times he has pitched really well on the road. in 2007 he gave up 2 earned runs or less in 4 of his 7 road starts and 5 of his 7 road starts went under the posted total. So i think i have two teams here that are not the greatest hitting clubs in the national league , who have not seen the opposing pitcher at all and a number set at 9.5. why not?
orioles +105 -- Just like the matchups here a lot. Cabrera has held the rays bats to just .255 against him in 145 total AB. He had four starts against tampa bay last year, i bolded the one in tampa
6 innings 8 hits 6 runs
7 innings 1 hit 0 runs
7 innings 4 hits 1 run
6 innings 5 hits 3 runs
Cabrera LOVES pitching away from home ... if he does not have the largest disparity in favor of away starts vs home starts , i dont know who does. His era at home in 2007 was 6.42 , His era on the road in 2007 was 4.26 OVER A TWO RUN DIFFERENCE. love it love it love it.
So lets look at his opponent in Hammel. In 47 looks the orioles have touched him for 17 hits including 3 homers. Roberts hits him , hernandez hits him , markakis hits him, and huff is 1 for 3 with a homer. In his lone start vs the orioles in 2007 he went 6 innings , 6 hits , 5 er , 3 homers. He has now given up 4 runs or more in 8 of his last 12 starts dating back to last year. In addition, he rarely goes innings. Last year Hammel failed to go more than 5.1 innings in 10 of his 14 starts. This is important because tampas pen threw 48 pitches over 4 different guys out of the bullpen
so we get one guy who has shown shutdown ability , especially on the road, and against this specific team , who consistently burns innings versus a guy who consistently fails to pitch innings , with a somewhat depleted bullpen , and bad splits vs the opposing bats. ummm yeah i think i will bet this.
rangers +130 --I am sure this will not be a popular pick but i have good reasons for it. Lets start by saying that i believe halladay is at the beginning of his decline. It isnt just me saying it either , the blue jays organization said in the spring that he had lost some velocity. He has actually looked pretty average so far this year ... he went 8 innings , 8 hits and 4 er vs the bosox and he went 7 innings 7 hits and 3 er at the yankees. Normally i would say those are pretty decent starts against those lineups but both the red sox and yanks batters are off to slow starts. He also gave up 4 hr in those 15 innings pitched. And guess what ..... he really is not that consistent a stud pitcher on the road lately. He has given up 4 runs or more in half of his last 14 starts on the road........ and he HATES small parks. Check out his last bunch of starts in hitters parks ....
sep 26 at baltimore .........................7 innings 11 hits 5 runs
sep 4 at boston .............................8 innings 9 hits 5 runs
jul 12 at boston .............................5 innings 8 hits 5 runs
jun 25 at minny ( maybe neutral ) ...7 innings 6 hits 5 runs
may 5 at texas ..............................5.1 innings , 12 hits 9 runs
apr 24 at boston ...........................8 innings , 5 hits , 3 runs
i bolded the game at texas ..... Does this look like the dominant road pitcher most people likely think he is ??? he doesnt perform in hitters parks. the rangers bat over .300 as a team against him and young , blalock , broussard , laird , and bradley all bat over .300 against him.
Meanwhile we have one of the situations i like on the other side of the equation with luis mendoza taking the hill for the rangers. the blue jays have not seen him at all. a total of 3 ab with zero base knocks. The blue jays are also the worst in the american league vs righty pitching .... and now like i said they get a righty that they havent seen before. The oddsmakers are tricking a lot of saturday casual fans with this line gamg. "Halladay against some guy i have never heard of ??? the blue jays are better than the rangers !! And look !!!! I only have to lay 50 cents !!! " . Do not buy into it ... the rangers are the play.
a few games that i like slightly less but will likely be playing with some quick blurbs
cubs +150 --- cubs are a good club and phillies bat just .153 off of lilly. Price seems right to take a shot even against a hot cole hamels that i have a lot of respect for.
minny/kc over -- bonser and tomko dont put the fear of god into hitters and these teams wont be scoring runs on sunday when liriano and bannister go at it. likely the runs come here.
giants -120 -- cards have only 11 ab against cain and have not gotten a hit. Should i mention the pitcher advantage when he hasnt been seen again ? his fastball should look all the faster after watching zito slowballs all night friday. not interested in laying much more than 25 cents here though
that took a long time to type and i suck at typing so any grammar or typos you will just have to forgive.
good luck on saturday bases gang
