(48-45) +1.26 units in 11 days

Detroit at St. Louis.  Turnbull vs Wainwright.

Let's start with Wainwright.  A 41 year old pitcher who starts his 18th year in the bigs this year.  He is coming off a groin injury and 3 starts in AAA ball.

He got beat up in AAA ball but that might mean nothing if the start of Senzatela yesterday is any harbinger of how these dinosaurs can perform first game back off injury.

Last year, the Cardinals made him look good with one of the best fielding defenses in the league.

Not so much this year as they rank 2nd worst in defensive efficiency.  All those hit balls will have a MUCH better chance at getting on base.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say he will get hit today, won't throw a no hitter or perfect game.  A big limb but still a limb.

Mr. Turnbull had Tommy John surgery and missed all of 2021.  He has not been the same pitcher since he came back.

He has a season 6.84 ERA/ 1.67 WHIP and a 5.40 FIP.

Lefties are hitting .297, righties .262.

He has a walk problem as well.  Always good for more runs.

I will give him this, he has been slightly better his last 2 outings with a 4.50/1.63 ERA/WHIP split.

But I still believe he gets hit today.

The books believe it too.  The posted an OVER or 9 which is currently at -114.  But the TTs are more telling.

Detroit TT OVER 3.5 is -135 and the St. Louis TT OVER 4.5 is -145.

These are the two most juiced OVERs on the card today.  The books don't want you to take these over without paying for it at a high rate.

Detroit has a lot of value at +164.  So does the OVER for the full game.  Team totals a bit less so just because of the high juice.

I'm taking Detroit here.  As cold as I have been, Wainwright might throw 5 innings of no hit ball.

Detroit Tigers +164 for 3 units.

Miami at the Cubs.  Hoeing vs Smyly.

Mr. Hoeing looked good in the minors this year, pitching to a 2.08 ERA with 20:2 K:BB in three starts with Triple-A Jacksonville.

But as we know, that doesn't always translate to the bigs and has not in his case.

He has made 2 MLB starts going 6.23/1.62 in ERA/WHIP with a line of 13.2IP 16H 8R 8ER 0HR 3BB 6Ks.

Lefties are hitting a manageable .231 but righties are crushing at .348.

Bluntly, he should get crushed today.  Keyword "should".

Meanwhile, Smyly is doing Smyly things.

1.37/0.61 ERA/WHIP in his last 3 starts.  He has now given up one or zero runs in four of his six starts this season.

Since he was blown up by Cincy in his debut game of the season, he's been outstanding posting a 1.48 ERA and 0.69 WHIP over 30.1 innings.

I believe he will flirt with a no hitter or complete game multiple times this season.  He already has in one game this year.

An ultra conservative play here would be the Cubs F5 on the ML.  Aggressive play would be the Cubs -1.5 for the full game.

In the middle somewhere would be the Cubs F5 -.5.

Wow. LOL.  Literally, I went to go look at the current lines and Miami has changed their starter to Chi Chi Gonzales.

All of that work for nothing.  HA!

I just reviewed his body of work.  He is a journeyman reliever with a career around 5.50/1.50 ERA/WHIP.

He had registered a 4.54 ERA, 1.40 WHIP and 18:6 K:BB through 33.2 innings (six starts) this season at Triple-A Jacksonville.

Probably worse than Hoeing.

Tempted to make this the play of the day.

But I don't have a line on the game yet.

Miami is now pitching Matt Barnes who use to play basketball for the golden st warriors

Good luck dude

@buffer

 Just now seeing that.

Looking him over.

Matt Barnes going for the Miami Marlins today is a step up from Chi Chi, in my opinion.

His line for the year as a reliever is 14IP 13H 6R 6ER 7BB 1HR 13K.

3.86/1.42 ERA/WHIP splits.

Definitely a step up from Chi Chi.

Maybe on par with Hoeing but there's a reason the 10 year veteran is not starting games anymore.

Still loving Smyly and the Cubs here.

The Cubs just came up at -179 on the ML.  RL -1.5 is +110.

Cubs F5 ML is -175.  Cubs F5 -.5 is -.5 at -125.

I'm going to take two plays on this game.

Cubs F5 -.5 -125 for 3 units.

Cubs RL -1.5 +110 for 3 units.

Bol Ad

Baltimore at Atlanta.  Bradish vs Strider.

Mr. Bradish, to put it kindly, has not been having a great season.

Lefties hitting him at .303, righties at .345.

There was an incident in his first game of the year vs Texas where he took a hard line drive hit to his foot.  Was out after 1.2IP.  Nothing broken.

Season 6.14/1.84 ERA/WHIP splits but his last 2 games he has been 12.86/2.71.  His season is only 4 starts but he was very good the first two.  Something happened.

Spencer Strider gave up 4 runs to the METS last outing, most of them on a home run by Pete Alonso.  I actually was watching that game when it happened.

My impression was that Strider had a thought to challenge him, show him who the boss was, got crotch forward and got his SH*T pushed in.  Cocky SOB.

Make no mistake, Strider reads his press clippings and numbers.

Will he learn anything from that?  Probably not.  Too much testosterone pumping through that porn star mustache.

All that being said, he is way, way better than the opposing pitcher. Lefties hitting him at .150 and righties at .159.

And the Braves are much better hitting team.  Of course, the line shows it.  Braves are -242.

Conservative approach would be to take the Braves F5 ML but the -240 is obscene.  More aggressive the -.5 on the F5 at -150.  More aggressive the RL -1.5 at -120.

Just a lean for now.  Not a play.

Colorado at the METS.  Gomber vs Megill.

This is a very interesting game. 

Gomber had pretty much been trash up until his last two starts.  For the season, he has a 7.57/1.68 ERA/WHIP split. 

BUT, his last 2 games he is 0.82/1.00.  Last start was vs Arizona, prior one was vs Cleveland.  More surprising vs Arizona as the Indians are a bad hitting team this year.

Lefties hitting .333, righties .281 over the season, but again, not in the last 2 games.

Megill started the season with 3 straight wins.  But no wins since.  This is his 7th start today.  His 2nd season in the bigs.

Over his past three outings, he's recorded a 6.14 ERA, 1.70 WHIP and a bad 10:8 K:BB over 14.2 frames.

Staring pitchers going in diametrically opposite directions here.

And, the METS as a hitting team.  Just a mess.  I've said many times if you just pitch around Alonso, you can have a lot of success.  Strider didn't get that memo.

Most of their hitting metrics are at league average or below.

Back 2 weeks ago when the METS were around 6 or 7 games over .500, I said repeatedly I had no idea how they were above .500 and that they would soon be under .500.

Their record today is 17-16.  Very good shot to reach .500 after today.

The line is METS -210 bringing back +180 on the Rockies.  This line is messed up.

The conservative play is Rockies RL +1.5 -110.  Rockies TT OVER 3.5 +105 would be mildly aggressive.  The Rockies F5 +.5 +120 would be aggressive.

This is not a play at this point, only a lean.

NYY at Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  German vs Rasmussen.

Surprising game here.  Generally, have to lean toward the Devil Rays at home but this game could be a tough one for them.

German started out the year rough but has been steadily improving.  His last start vs the Indians, a bottom 3 in the league hitting team, was dominating.

His last 2 games he sports a 4.46/0.90 ERA/WHIP.  Lefties are hitting .149 and righties .196.

Rasmussen started the year with some fantastic starts but has slowly been giving up more and more to the hitters.

His last 3 starts he has a 4.91/1.77 ERA/WHIP with lefties hitting .292 and righties .247 for the year.

I'm probably not playing this game but the value has to be with the Yankees in this spot.  A low scoring game would put more value on the Yankees RL +1.5 -140.

The F5 Yankees +.5 at +110 and the F5 ML at +160 have quite a bit of value as well.

The O/U is set at 7.5, largely due to German's improvements recently and the Yankees poor hitting.  The books think German can shut down the Devil Rays and Rasmussen can limit a poor hitting NYYs squad.

The Yankees do not have Judge, Stanton and Donaldson in the lineup again today.

Not official plays.  Leans only.

Minnesota at Cleveland.  S. Gray vs L. Allen.

Mr. Gray has a grand total of 3 runs scored vs him in his 6 starts consisting of 35IPs.

There are no typos in that sentence.

His line for the year is 35IP 25H 3R 3ER 0HR 12BB 31Ks with an ERA of 0.77 and Whip of 1.06.

No typos in that sentence either.  We are talking legitimate Cy Young candidate if he can keep this up.

Lelfties hitting .208 and righties hitting .190 for the year vs him.

One small area of concern is that quite a few of the hitters for the Indians have history against him.  Some of them have pretty good numbers.  Of course, for previous years.  He has not faced the Indians this year.

This will be Mr. Allen's 3rd start in MLB.  His first two were very good efforts going 2.45/1.09 on ERA/WHIP.

If the Indians were not so bad, no, I mean absolutely WRETCHED at hitting, he might have a chance today.

I posted this in another thread earlier today but it bears repeating.  I present to you, The Cleveland Indians Batting Profile!

Batting average 29th out of 30 teams.

OBP is 25th out of 30 teams.

Slugging is 30th out of 30 teams.  Dead Last in the league.

OPS is 30th out of 30 teams.  Again, dead last.

OPS+ is 29th out of 30 teams.

Total bases.  30th out of 30 teams.  Last

Yeah, they are not beating Sonny Gray and the Twins today.

BUT, and it's a BIG BUT.  Why is the line Minnesota -113, Indians -107? 

I'm going to need some help on this one fam.

Lots of help.

I want to pull the trigger but will be waiting and watching for the line moves and your comments.

Help a brother out here!

@AdVictoriam

 You do know this is a bullpen game for Miami and Barnes will only go 1 or 2 innings,right? Of course,a highly intelligent guy like you (who wasn't aware of the pitching change) but has your finger on the pulse would know this......right?  You never mentioned it's a bullpen game though,so i guess you think Barnes  is going 5 innings. 

@collectNOW

 Highly intelligent people can miss details.

Unlike yourself, the burden of perfection doesn't lie on my back. lol.

Almost didn't matter who the Marlins put up there today.

My big point was I liked Smyly to pitch well and win the game.

But.

That point COULD have been lost on a highly intelligent person such as yourself.

Just sayin...

That's really funny.

I ask for help on the Twins/Cleveland game and I get a weak ass troll on some fine point that means absolutely nothing.

C'mon.

FOCUS on the TWINS/INDIANS game!

Why is this line not Twins -150????? -170??????

I need some real help in here!

I don't ask for much.  Don't ask often.  But help a brother out!

@AdVictoriam

You're the one doing the analysis and making the picks, so the burden of putting out correct info is on you.  And missing the fact that a game is going to be a bullpen game is a pretty glaring error.  Kind of like the guys posting about how the totals line of 15.5 for the SF/SD game last week must have been an error and they grabbed the under hoping their books wouldn't notice it - they obviously didn't do enough capping because they didn't realize the game was being played at 7200 ft above sea level in Mexico City.  Honestly, and this is just my opinion here, you often times seem to miss the forest for the trees.

As for the MIN game, the Twin hitters suck against southpaws, hitting a pathetic .192 against them.  So there's that...

@AdVictoriam

 Gray will show regression today with Clev bats waking up

@Robards

 Sir, why will the "Cleveland bats wake up" on this particular day?

I'm honestly asking a real question.  This is not rhetorical.

Does your gut say this to you?  That is a real thing, if so.  The brain communicates with the gut and "gut feelings" are the supercomputer making decisions and confirming them.

An actual scientific concept these days as experiential science has confirmed this.

Or is there some other reason?

Did you read the post above about how seriously bad the Indians are at HITTING the baseball?

If not, let me repost it here.

Batting average 29th out of 30 teams.

OBP is 25th out of 30 teams.

Slugging is 30th out of 30 teams.  Dead Last in the league.

OPS is 30th out of 30 teams.  Again, dead last.

OPS+ is 29th out of 30 teams.

Total bases.  30th out of 30 teams.  Last. AGAIN.

I'm not trying to be facetious or rude.  I need something here to hang my hat on.

And Sonny Gray has not shown even a scintilla of regression in 6 starts this year.  NOW. TODAY? Is the day he folds like a cheap tent??????? vs the INDIANS no less??????

Very difficult to believe the books are basing this all  on the Twins not being able to hit Logan Allen and his MIGHTY LEFT ARM OF DOOM.

Detroit Tigers pull out the WIN!

Don't look now but they have a 5 game winning streak. 

Stunning.

And I went 2 of 3 on the early games!

I feel like I'm alive again!

lol.

Oh.

And every OVER won, as I predicted in the Tigers/Cards game.

The FG over 9, the Team Totals.  I could have had 3 more winners.

See what a losing streak does to a man.

Makes him doubt himself.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Well.

I can't find anything significant enough to pull me off of the Twins and Sonny Gray today.

Maybe the books have just got me by the short hairs.

It is what it is.

Official Play.  First 10 unit play of the year.

Minnesota Twins ML -109

If they got me, they just got me.  I'm all in.

Marmol just sucks dick as a coach! Some sort of equal opportunity hire. 

Sonny Gray is not nearly as good on the road as he is at home.

@AdVictoriam

 CLEV BATS GOTTA WAKE UP AND GRAY WILL REGRESS.MY GUT SAYS A PERFECT STORM FOR THIS TO HAPPEN TODAY

@buffer

 Yeah.

Home 0.72/0.84 ERA/WHIP

Road O.90/1.60 ERA/WHIP

You are correct.  He is much much worse on the road.

I will take Cleveland and Over 7.5 just for you. And I will also take Cleveland team total over 3.5