Sat (6/1) "The Good, the Bad, the Ugly"

TB is winning 9-2 Top 9th.  I will go ahead and claim that game as a win, making my record 31-5 in this current run (86%).  

The Good:

DET (-130)

Verlander owns BAL (7-0 in 11 starts lifetime).  DET is batting with a .330 AVG vs. Hammel in his career (6.17 ERA in 23.1 IP). 

PIT (-127)

Liriano is pitching lights out vs. NL teams (3-0) because this is his first year pitching in the NL.  Leake’s teams rarely win 4 of his starts in a row.  It has only happened 3 times, but those 4^th straight wins were against the worst teams in the MLB (2010: 5-3 vs. CHC, 2011: 8-2 vs. CHC, 2012: 4-1 vs. HOU).  I don’t see it happening this year against a team tied with them for the 3^rd best record in the MLB and who have a 20-10 HOME record.   

WAS (+123)

WAS has a unique W/L trend that has repeated itself twice this season whenever Gio starts (WLWWL, WLWWL).  The iteration is due to start over again in his next start.  [Refer to OAK (-155) about this logic.]  Hudson has failed to have a quality start in his last 4 outings.  He has given up at least 5 earned runs in 3 of his last 4 starts. 

The Bad:  Fading TEX vs. Shields, Cain (SF)/SF AWAY

KC (+125) [Hedge with the +1.5 RL]

Shields is 7-3 lifetime vs. TEX.  In 2012, Shields went 2-1 vs. TEX (his only loss being a final score of 1-0 TEX).  TEX has lost 4 of Tepesch’s last 5 starts.  Aside from Shields’ most recent bad outing, opposing teams have been held to no more than 3 runs in 7 of his last 8 starts.  I think KC can score 4 on Tepesch.

STL (-141) Game 1

Sticking with yesterday’s pick.  The extra day off gives STL more time to get over that strange 3 AM ending vs. KC.  Cain is still 2 wins in 9 starts lifetime vs. STL.

The Ugly:  Fading CWS AWAY, SF losing 4^th straight Bumgarner start

OAK (-155)

Quintana is just 1-0 in 5 AWAY starts this year because CWS does not hit well on the road.  Quintana has been winning and losing in pairs this season (L, L, W, W, L, L, L, W, W, L), so he is scheduled for another loss.  The last two picks in which I used this type of logic are 2-0 (Tommy Milone’s alternating quality starts, AJ Griffin’s alternating W/L AWAY).  Straily just held two heavy-hitting teams TEX and SFO to a combined 1 ER off 6 H in 13 IP (0.69 ERA, 0.54 WHIP).

SF (+130) Game 2

SF has not lost 4 straight Bumgarner starts since April 2011.  SF has lost 7 of their last 8 road games (0.125 winning %).  This trend has to regress back to the mean (50%) at some point.  Also, in Bumgarner has not had 2 consecutive non-quality starts this season.  Wainwright has won 8 of his last 10 starts – but curiously, his two losses in that span came at HOME.  I don’t see STL sweeping the doubleheader.