In today’s MLB Picks of the Day we have a day game
featuring the Phillies and Marlins then a night game to cap things off with the
Dodgers and Pirates. Two aces Roy Halladay and Clayton Kershaw are both
pitching, will we be fading or following?
Warning: We are 0-3 going back to our last three in our
baseball plays since coming off an 11-3 run, maybe it’s just the law of
averages, evening things out right now. Also this is arguably the toughest time
to handicap major league baseball where contenders become pretenders and vice
versa. Teams have called up players from the Minor leagues who you have no idea
about and they could possibly have huge impacts on games. Tread lightly.
Phillies vs Marlins
Roy Halladay is set to match up with Mark Buerhle today and
the line has opened up with Philly around a -135 favorite, the total at 7.
Philadelphia is finally hot, winners of four of their last five and seven of
their last 10 over all. Meanwhile, Miami has lost four straight, not putting a
single run on the board in all four games, while losing seven of their last
ten. Big mismatch here today in our opinion.
Doc Halladay
The Doctor is back. After hitting a rough patch, Roy
Halladay is back to being himself. Completely dominating. Over his last three starts, Halladay has gone
21 innings while giving up just 11 hits,
with an 0.62 WHIP and 1.71 ERA. He's struck out 20 batters while walking just
four over that frame. He's coming off his best start off the season against the
Cardinals, going 8 innings of 2 hit ball, 1 earned run and 8 Ks. Now we all know
when this guy gets rolling, he is next to impossible to stop. Now a Marlins
squad who have been shut out in four straight games are faced with Doc today.
Good luck with that Miaaami!!!
The Marlins offense and Mark Beurhle
Miami will counter with Mark Buerhle and after a solid year,
the innings may be starting to take its toll on the old man’s arm. In his last
three starts Buerhle has an ERA of 7.71, giving up 21 hits in just 16 innings
pitched with an awful WHIP of 1.78. Meanwhile in their last five games, the
Phillies line up is crushing left handed pitching, hitting at a .300 clip, .400
OBP and putting up almost 10 runs per nine innings! Again, total mismatch in
favor of Philadelphia. The Marlins are simply fish out of water right now, when
you lose 7 of your last 10, getting shut out in 4 straight, that wears on you
mentally, big time and Roy Halladay is the absolute LAST person you want to see
to try and get going.
At the price of -137 there are way too many advantages on
the Philadelphia side to pass up here. We are not sure why they are priced so
low, but we will take the bait.
Phillies and Roy
Halladay -137 is our first MLB Pick of the Day
In our next game we have the LA Dodgers and the Pittsburgh
Pirates and we have almost some of the same identical mismatches, in this game as we described in the
Philadelphia Miami game. Dodgers are a -137 favorite with Clayton Kershaw
pitching, while Pitt sends Wandy Rodriquez to the hill.
Dodgers are hot
Los Angeles is finally hitting their stride, 11 games over
.500, winners of 3 straight and seven of their last 10 overall. They'll give
the ball to Kershaw who is in search of his 4th straight win. In his
last three starts Clayton is making his case for back to back Cy Young award
winner, with 22 innings pitched, giving up just 11 hits with a 0.67 WHIP and
1.21 ERA, striking out 7 batters in each game. He will face a Pirates offense
who have been shut out in 2 of their last four games and out of their last
five, are experiencing an OBP of .299 against LHP while barely averaging three
runs per nine innings. Again big mismatch.
Pirates may be falling apart
After making a magnificent run all season long, the Pirates
could be feeling the strain of the pressure season pressure of winning, something that they have never experienced before. Pitt has
dropped two straight and six out of their last 10. Wandy Rodriguez will go to
the hill and since acquiring him from the Astros, he hasn't excellent been
great or particularly bad either. Just the picture of mediocrity. In his last
three starts, Wandy is 0-2 with a 4.74 ERA and 1.42 WHIP. He will face a Dodger
offense that is just on fire right now, putting up a combined 21 runs in their
last three games alone. Another Mismatch in favor of the Dodgers.
We have used the word ‘mismatch’ a lot today but in all honesty
that is really what we have in these two games and the similarities are kind of
bizarre to be honest. We won't get these
kind of low prices with two hot handed pitchers and squads going up against teams
that are in the dumps mentally and physically at the moment.
The LA Dodgers -137
wrap up our MLB Picks of the Day.