| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 0 | 4 | 0.00 | -8.00 |
| Last 30 Days | 11 | 7 | 0.00 | +11.53 |
| Season to Date | 11 | 7 | 0.00 | +11.53 |
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All plays are for 2 units with exception of Toronto and KC, which are both 2 units bet.
HOME TEAM IN CAPS
Boston -101 over N.Y. YANKEES
1:05 PM EST. The Red Sox won a marathon, 19-inning game last night in the opener of this series so they come into this one feeling much better than the Yankees. Joe Kelly is one of a several new faces in the Red Sox rotation this season and figures to get better run support. What we like about Kelly in this matchup is that he keeps the ball on the ground with an elite groundball/fly-ball split of 55%/24%. He also brings mid 90’s heat and those two things combined are something these Yankees do not thrive against. The Yanks are a bunch of aging vets that have seen 1000’s of breaking balls over their careers. They are praying to get fed off-speed stuff because those are pitches they can handle. Throw them high heat and they simply can’t catch up to it anymore. Expect Kelly to bring that heat. The Yanks have scored a measly 13 runs in 46 innings and three of those runs were courtesy of two hit batters and an errant bounce in one inning. Overall, they are batting just .199 and we don’t see anything changing here.
The Red Sox have already drawn 25 walks in four games. They are going to force reliever turned starter, Adam Warren to throw strikes. While teammates Dellin Betances and David Robertson garnered the major headlines in 2014, Warren quietly put up excellent numbers in the Yanks bullpen. Warren tossed a sub-3.00 ERA and struck out nearly a batter per inning in middle relief. He now enters 2015 in the rotation, so how will his skill set carry over? Well, for starters, a below average first pitch strike rate doesn’t bode well against the Red Sox or anyone else for that matter. Warren’s favorable hr/f, especially in Yankee Stadium, probably won't hold up over the long haul either. Warren averages 3.2BB/9. That has led to a below average WHIP of 1.31. Anything over a 1.30 WHIP is troubling. Most of Warren’s 156 career innings have come in long relief and there’s always concern when a reliever transitions to starter. Truth is, it rarely works out well because there’s a reason he was a long relief man. The Yanks really don’t deserve to be favored here. They are the inferior team with inferior bats and inferior pitching and they should be 0-4 instead of 1-3 because their lone victory was this year’s luckiest win so far. The market is giving the Yanks far too much credit and we’re all over it.
Toronto +106 over BALTIMORE
7:05 PM EST. The Jays open the season a nifty 3-1 but they should be 4-0 after a very unlucky loss in New York in the middle game of that series. The Jays are playing outstanding defensively and their .271 team batting average is 40 points higher than the Orioles. Marcus Stroman's untimely ACL tear opened up the door for Aaron Sanchez to crack the rotation. Sanchez was tabbed as the team's closer but he’s been a starter his entire career and is very comfortable in that role. He’ll now make his debut as a starter after pitching 33 innings of relief after his call-up in late July of last year. Toronto fans and media have been singing praises regarding Sanchez ever since. We’re not going to jump the gun on Sanchez until we see more but what we know for sure is that he's armed with a lethal fastball that touches 98 MPH and he induces a lot of groundballs. We’d like to see better control from his secondary offerings but like everything else in his profile, it’s a small sample size. It’s also worth noting that current Orioles have one career hit in 14 combined AB’s versus Sanchez.
This one has much more to do with fading Ubaldo Jimenez that backing Aaron Sanchez. Jimenez rediscovered poor control in spectacular fashion with 77 walks in 125 frames last year. He missed time with a bad ankle but his skills were off all year. Jimenez’s fastball was 2 MPH slower than the year before, his swing and miss rate fell hard and his first pitch strike rate is a complete mess. That's now three "disaster" seasons in four years. Even if 2010 were a possible prize, it's not a lottery ticket worth scratching and now the potent lineup he’ll be facing figures to go off again after scoring 12 times here yesterday. Wrong side favored.
Houston/TEXAS over 8½ -107
8:05 PM EST. Roberto Hernandez is an innings-eating, groundball pitcher that curbed a lethal hr/f habit last year only to have a command plunge create new issues. His first pitch strike rate is on a three-year decline. His strikeout rate skid was concurrent with his decline in fastball velocity. His ERA gains are fleeting and you don't want him anywhere near your bankroll. (Always think Fausto Carmona 2011, if you're ever tempted). Hernandez is a 34-year-old stiff that is probably not going to make it through the year as a starter or reliever so now would be the time to try and cash in on his appalling profile. This past spring confirms our position even more, as Hernandez whiffed a measly five batters in 15 innings while walking seven.
As someone who won 60 games between 2009-2012, Yovani Gallardo was a fairly consistent contributor at this level but those days are long gone and there are no signs that Gallardo is about to undergo a resurgence. His swing and miss rate was below league-average last year so expect an even bigger decline this year. Gallardo had better control last year, but with a low first pitch strike rate, that’s likely to regress as well. He’s also got a perennially high hr/f, which does not bode well at this park. Gallardo was rocked in his season debut in Oakland, where he was tagged for six hits and four runs in just four innings. Scoring is way down and so are the totals posted by the oddsmakers but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any opportunities to cash in. That’s what we have here with two complete stiffs in a huge hitter’s park.
Kansas City +123 over L.A. ANGELS
9:05 PM EST. Jeremy Guthrie is an innings-eater who does his thing, which doesn't include offering much value when he’s favored but that’s not the case here. Guthrie’s decent control keeps his performance above water but as he showed in the 2nd half of last year, a hit% swing in the wrong direction can hurt. Guthrie’s strikeout and groundball rates are dug in. He's healthy, consistent, reliable and painfully mediocre but he pitches for a team that is off to a 4-0 start and he wins games. That said, this one has nothing to do with backing Guthrie and everything to do with fading Jered Weaver.
A lot of folks are going to look at this line and see the Angels ace, Jered Weaver a cheap -135 over Jeremy Guthrie and swallow the juice immediately. Weaver opened the year against Seattle’s ace Felix Hernandez and took the loss but losing to King Felix is nothing to hang your head over. We’ve been fading Weaver for the past couple of years without much success because he’s continued to win games and outpitch his skills more than any other starter in baseball. That is all about to come crashing down because the writing is on the wall. Weaver’s ERA jump of 3.59 last year (up from 3.27 the previous year) is reflective of increasing his xERA downside. With below-average skills now, his downside is even worse than that mediocre second half last year. Avoidance of disaster is his only redeemable skill but his 2nd half disaster % reveals cracks there too. Weaver’s 33%/48% groundball/fly-ball ratio from last season was one of the worst splits in baseball. His remaining days of keeping the ball in the yard are scarce. He’s always been a fly-ball pitcher but we’re now seeing a rise in his line-drive rate too. In his first start this year in Seattle, Weaver faced 25 batters and recorded 17 of his 25 outs by way of the fly-ball. He had one strikeout and 7 groundball outs. His groundball rate of 25% in that first start was identical to his 25% line-drive rate. Weaver relies on luck more than skills. Those hard hit balls have been hit right at people for two years running. Now those balls are being hit even harder. If you think Jered Weaver is an ace and worthy of this price, think again. He’s not worthy of anything and there is much profit to be made in fading him until the market catches up to his eroding skills.
