Most of us don't work on Saturdays, but it's nice to still make a little cash on a day off. With that goal in mind we offer up a couple of free MLB picks for Saturday. Where have we found the best baseball betting value?
A's-O's in Crab City
For the first of our free MLB picks we look to Baltimore, where the Oakland
A's are looking to continue their recent winning ways vs. the Orioles. Oakland
took the opener of this series Friday night 14-9, giving up an early 5-0 lead,
then rallying for a six-spot in the top of the ninth for the victory. So the
A's are 17-3 this month of July, and have played themselves into one of the two
American League Wild-Card spots.
Baltimore, meanwhile, after leading the AL East for a good
part of this season, has fallen off the pace in the divisional race, going
10-13 this month. But the Orioles only trail Oakland by 2.5 games in the battle
for that second Wild-Card spot.
Bartolo Colon (6-8, 3.97) hits the hill Saturday for Oakland
against Tommy Hunter (4-5, 5.57) for Baltimore.
On an injury note the A's might be without OF Josh Reddick
(22 HR this season) Saturday, after he ran into a wall and had to be carted off
the field Friday night.
Oakland is on a roll, while the Orioles seem to be falling
back to reality. So we'll go with the A's, who can be gotten at around -110 at
most online MLB betting sites, for our pick here.
Nationals Battle
Brewers in Beer Town
For our second pick we look toward Milwaukee, where the NL
East-leading Washington Nationals are taking on the fading Brewers.
Washington took the opener of this series Thursday 8-2, but
Milwaukee, behind another nice effort from rookie starting pitcher Mike Fiers,
won Friday night 6-0.
Streak bettors took a hit Friday night, because the loss
broke a six-game winning streak for the Nationals, while the victory ended a seven-game
slide for the Brew Crew.
So the Nats lead in the NL East sits at four games over
second-place Atlanta. Washington is also tied with NL Central-leading
Cincinnati in the battle for the best record in the National League.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, has played itself out of playoff
contention, and consequently just traded SP Zack Greinke to the Angels. So the
Brewers have thrown in the towel on this season.
Wisconsin native Jordan Zimmerman (7-6, 2.31) will start for
the Nats today against Randy Wolf (3-6, 5.46) for the Brew Crew.
Zimmerman is working on a string of 10 straight quality
starts. He's only got seven wins to his credit, but he should probably have
about a dozen. Over his last six starts, covering 38 innings, Big Z has given
up just four earned runs.
Wolf, meanwhile, is working off two straight quality
outings. But still, on the season, he's allowed 135 hits in 112 innings, and
given up four or more runs in half his starts.
On another injury note Washington recently placed SS Ian
Desmond (17 homers, 15 SBs this season) on the DL with an torn oblique. But
until getting shut-out Friday the Nats had won five in a row and averaged seven
runs per game without him. Go figure.
We like the Nationals for Saturday's game, and with a little
shopping around Washington can be found as low as -125 on the money line at
most MLB odds sites. But we might want to get down quick, because that
price was steadily rising Saturday morning.
Did Someone Say “Hook
'Em?”
We're not averse to playing parlays in baseball, especially
when backing a couple of favorites. If we paired the A's and Nats in a two-team
parlay, it would pay out at odds of about 2.4-to-1.