| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 0 | 1 | 0.00 | -2.00 |
| Last 30 Days | 21 | 20 | 0.00 | +7.95 |
| Season to Date | 21 | 20 | 0.00 | +7.95 |
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All wagers are 2 units. Cardinals are 2.1 units to win 2.
St. Louis -½ -105 over PITTSBURGH
[FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][/FONT][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important]1st 5 innings. Jonathan Sanchez is not likely to keep his starting rotation spot for long. Last time out against Arizona, Sanchez gave up nine earned runs in just 3.1 innings. Last season, 10 of his 15 starts ended in disasters including his lone start versus St. Louis. An 8.07 ERA last year (12.06 ERA in two starts this year), control issues, two consecutive years of dealing with left biceps tendinitis and several other factors strongly suggest that Sanchez is on the way out. Simply put, Sanchez has become batting practice out there and it’s unlikely to change against this potent offense that leads the NL in runs scored.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial !important]
Jake Westbrook is a groundball machine. Since 2002, these are Westbrook’s groundball rates: 60% in 2002 followed by 62%, 62%, 61%, 53%, 55%, 56%, 59% and finally 58% last season. This year in two starts, Westbrook’s groundball rate is 63%. We all know that a pitcher’s best friend is the double-play ball and Westbrook’s elite groundball tilt allows him to quickly erase runners and get out of jams. Westbrook is coming off a complete game shutout over the Reds. The veteran hurler stepped up his game last year at age 34 and he’s now delivering the combination of ERA, WHIP and wins we haven't seen in years. Opposing Sanchez, Westbrook should be in line for some big run support and we should be in line at the cashier’s window after the fifth inning. [/FONT]
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TORONTO -1½ +137 over Chicago
[FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][/FONT][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important]Dylan Axelrod has a career WHIP of 1.52 in 79 career major league innings. Any WHIP over 1.50 is a disaster waiting to happen and it happened for Axelrod in his last start at Washington in which he needed 103 pitches to get through 3.2 innings. In that start, Axelrod was tagged for seven hits and six runs while walking four batters. In two starts, Axelroad has walked more batters than he’s struck out. His WHIP is 1.71. Axelrod is 27-years old and has been up and down from the minors his entire career. The only reason he has a job this year is because John Danks is on the rack. Axelrod isn’t likely to get much run support either. The South Side has only managed 45 runs in their first 13 games and they own an AL worst .267 OBP. Additionally, the White sox are now 5-8 on the year and have lost six of seven on the road.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial !important]The Blue Jays pitching has taken a turn for the better. The Jays staff was brilliant in Kansas City and they picked up right where they left off last night in a 4-3 win in the opener of this series.
The White Sox scored two in the first last night but scored just one more the rest of the way. That was against Mark Buehrle. Josh Johnson is a different animal. Two rough starts by Johnson have many Blue Jays fans a bit worried but everything points to some hard luck as oppose to bad skills. Johnson still has 7 K’s in 7 frames and a groundball bias profile. He’s been done in by an unlucky 58% strand rate but this opponent is the perfect remedy for Johnson to get right-sided. Adam Dunn is batting .128 in the five spot and Paul Konerko is hitting .222 in the cleanup role. Konerko may get better but Adam Dunn will not, as he’s nothing but an overpaid lummox that closes his eyes and swings at anything in hopes of making contact. The South Side has too many holes in its batting lineup to be a threat and this is the game that Josh Johnson shows his true value.[/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT]MILWAUKEE +102 over San Francisco
[FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important]1st 5 innings. It really is amazing….baseball "experts" everywhere are singing the praises of Barry Zito. "Barry Zito is finally living up to his $126 million contract." "He's commanding his curve." "He's added a slider to keep batters off balance." Good thing you’re reading this because this is the only sentence you should believe ... "This is still Barry Zito." There is no doubt that when we look at the surface stats, Zito looks like the Cy Young winner he once was. However, when we look under the hood, we see that this is a skill set that really hasn't changed all that much. Zito’s stretch and playoff run last year combined with his 0.00 ERA in two starts sure is sexy until you see that xERA of (4.44) over his past 20 starts that screams "Watch out! A correction is right around the corner!" Thanks to a fastball that tops out in the high 80's, Zito is still flashing the same mediocre strikeout rate that says he can't get out of trouble on his own and that hasn't changed despite what his ERA would suggest. See that HR/9 of 0.0 and WHIP of 1.00. A serious correction in both is forthcoming because Zito has a groundball/fly-ball split of 32%/46% and a strand rate of 100%. Prior to last year, Zito never had a winning season with the Giants. Over his last 16 starts, he’s been extremely lucky in that those hard hit balls are somehow being hit right at people. Don't get us wrong, Zito will deliver some decent starts over the balance of the 2013 season. What he hasn't done is discover a time machine that has allowed him to travel back to the year 2002 and retrieve the skills he had when he won the American League Cy Young. If you are thinking about pulling the trigger on Barry Zito, we’re suggesting the time to sell high on this guy is right now because if ever there was a fluke, Barry Zito is it. He’s been defying logic for far too long and it’s going to come crashing down at some point. That you can count on.[/FONT][FONT=arial !important]
Wily Peralta is a pitcher to keep an eye on. He went 2-1 with a 2.48 ERA in 29 innings pitched for the Crew last season. Peralta spent most of year as a starter in AAA, walking too many but striking out a batter per inning and as a result, he earned a September callup, where he didn’t look a bit out of place. While Peralta’s control is a work in progress, his big strikeout rate and elite groundball tilt (58%) will cover a few too many BBs. That said, this one is more about fading Zito, thus the five-inning wager.
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