| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Last 30 Days | 38 | 32 | 0.00 | +21.52 |
| Season to Date | 48 | 45 | 0.00 | +17.76 |
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CLEVELAND -107 over Oakland
[FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important]The Indians are red hot. They’ve won eight of their past nine, they lead the majors in HR’s with 44 and over their past 15 games, Cleveland leads the majors with a team batting average of .312 and 95 runs scored. They have quietly gone over .500 and are now 15-14 on the year. After taking the opener in this series, 7-3 last night, they face Tommy Milone here. A control artist in the minors, Tommy Milone's ability to maintain similar accuracy at this level has carried over. Big deal, the dude can throw strikes but you need more than one skill to last at this level and it's hard to overlook a few glaring negatives in Milone’s profile. He allows far too many fly balls and line drives but pitching home games at O.co Coliseum (-12% RHB HR, -31% LHB HR) worked to his benefit (2.63 home ERA). On the road, Milone has a 6.17 ERA. Righties gave him nothing but trouble and we’ll look to last year’s much larger sample size, especially in the 2H for proof (.316 Opp BA) although a 36% hit rate vs. RHP didn't do him any favors, either. Milone is hittable and he has a disturbing groundball/line-drive/fly-ball profile of 34%/22%/43%. Furthermore, of his six starts, four have been at home. His two road starts were against the Rays and Angels, where Milone allowed 15 hits and 10 runs in 11.1 frames. His train ticket back to the minors is on the horizon and at this park against this strong hitting club, he’s likely to get rocked again.[/FONT][FONT=arial !important]
Zach McAllister has the skills support of his 3.30 ERA and 1.20 WHIP. While he doesn't have overpowering stuff, McAllister’s slider has the second-most vertical movement in the game. McAllister features a rising strikeout rate along with solid control and remains on our radar as a breakout candidate. That said, this one is all about fading Milone and riding the Indians red-hot sticks. Play: Cleveland -107 (Risking 2.14 units to win 2).
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N.Y. Yankees/COLORADO over 9 -105
[FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][/FONT][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important]This total at Coors Field is low because Hiroki Kuroda is 4-1 with a 2.25 ERA. Kuroda is a hot pitcher faced with a very tough matchup. As a member of the Dodgers, Kuroda made four trips to Coors Field, going 1-2 with a 6.85 ERA and 1.57 WHIP in 22.1 IP. Psychologically, that’s a battle that Kuroda isn’t likely to win and these Rockies will be waiting. Should Kuroda throw a decent game and allow three runs or fewer, there’s always the Yankees erratic pen not fall behind.
Then there’s Jorge De La Rosa.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial !important]The Yankees hitters make pitchers work and they make them throw strikes. They will step out of the box constantly to further disrupt a pitchers rhythm and rhythm is something De La Rosa lacks. De La Rosa never looks quite comfortable on the hill. He is constantly battling control issues and falling behind hitters. In his last two starts covering 10 innings, De La Rosa has struck out a measly two batters while walking five. He’s only pitched one of his six starts at Coors this year and he’s getting progressively worse with each start. De La Rosa’s high strikeout rate and good groundball rate of previous years would be plenty to at least get us interested if he was healthy and entering his prime but he’s not. The fact that he's 32 with declining skills and coming off elbow surgery make him all the less appealing. Yanks may score eight or more on their own here. Play: NYY/Colorado over 9 -105 (Risking 2.1 units to win 2). [/FONT]
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Minnesota +165 over BOSTON
[FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important]1st 5 innings. After six starts covering 36 innings, Ryan Dempster is 2-2 with an ERA of 3.00, a BAA of .189 and he’s also struck out 47 batters. Dempster has always been serviceable and even great during many stretches of his long career but he’s NOT this good. Dempster will go for his seventh consecutive pure quality start here and it’s rare to see pitchers at this level, even the best ones, to keep throwing gems game after game after game. Dempster’s 15.2% swinging strike rate trails only that of Yu Darvish. While Dempster's fastball velocity has dipped to 89 mph, his third straight year of fastball decline, he is using his splitter more to generate swings-and-misses. It's a pitch that hitters have a .037 BA against. However, Dempster has been aided by an unsustainable 86% strand rate and his strikeout rate is far above anything he’s ever posted. The Twins batting lineup features a group of hitters that don’t strike out often and Dempster could get caught here with a little less intensity after all those successive quality starts.[/FONT][FONT=arial !important]
To say Scott Diamond's 2012 success was a surprise would be an understatement. He lost 19 games between Triple-A and a brief stint in the majors in 2011, with a 6.28 ERA. Then something clicked, Diamond cut his walks in half and anchored the Minnesota rotation for the majority of 2012. He’s carried that over to this year and he’ll now face a Red Sox team that is hitting just .231 against southpaws. Diamond has walked just three batters in 23 frames while striking out 13. He has an elite groundball rate of 51% and an xERA of 3.06 over his past three starts. Scott Diamond isn’t going to attract much attention but what he will do is give the Twinkies a chance to win and at this price, he’s definitely worth a wager to have the lead after five innings. Play: Minnesota +165 is the first 5 (Risking 2 units). [/FONT]
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Arizona +107 over LOS ANGELES
[FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important][FONT=arial !important]Brandon McCarthy has turned himself into a good buy low target. He has a horrible 7.22 ERA and 1.72 WHIP after 34 IP, but his peripherals have been quite good: 5 BB, 24 K’s and a 41% groundball rate. A 40% hit rate and 58% strand rate have done him in. McCarthy is far from the 3.25 ERA pitcher he was in '11-'12 but he still has the goods to post a near-4.00 ERA and now gets the benefit of pitching at Chavez Ravine against a Dodgers squad that had dropped five in a row.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial !important]
Josh Beckett is hanging on for dear life. Beckett has an ugly 5.24 ERA and 1.43 WHIP after 34 IP. Unlike McCarthy, there is no end in sight for Beckett, as he has the profile of a minor-league long relief pitcher. Beckett’s line-drive rate over his last three starts has been 50%. Beckett’s sinker vs. LH bats is generating swings-and-misses only 6.5% of the time, and lefties are hitting bombs 4% of the time he throws that pitch, four times a higher rate than in 2012. At Dodger Stadium, Beckett is 0-2 with an ERA of 5.87. Beckett has been dogged by nagging shoulder and back injuries for almost two years now and his paltry win total and declining kills over that span screams out to avoid him at all costs. Pitching for the Dodgers certainly doesn’t add to Beckett’s low appeal. Play: Arizona +107 (Risking 2 units). [/FONT][/FONT]
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