Friday's Tip Sheet
July 10, 2015
Oakland Athletics at Cleveland Indians | 7:10 p.m. EST
For those who like riding youngsters that have been enjoying much success over the course of the campaign, then this series opener between the A’s and Tribe might be your game of choice this evening. On the home side, you have the emerging 25-year-old Danny Salazar (7-4, 4.10 ERA), who has always exhibited flashes of extensive dominance since coming up in the latter end of 2013, and despite enduring a humbling stint in the minor leagues last year, he’s been enjoying success for the most part this season. While his ERA is probably higher than the club anticipated, he’s pitched mostly better than that, as he did hold a 3.54 ERA only a couple of weeks ago. Either way, Salazar holds a very impressive 108/25 K/BB ratio in only 90 innings, good for a 10.80 K/9 tally, which ranks as one of baseball’s best marks. His ceiling still remains higher.
Opposing him is someone even younger, 24-year-old Kendall Graveman (6-4, 3.16 ERA), who has quickly turned his season around in remarkable fashion after a disastrous first month to begin his Major League career. The fact that his ERA is already that low is pretty incredible in itself, when you take into account that it was as high as 8.27 at the very end of April. It was at that point when he was actually sent down to the minor leagues, but since being recalled, though, he hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of his nine starts, eight of which registered as official quality ones. He’s certainly figured something out, especially when you take a look at his past six outings. The rookie right-hander has gone seven innings or more in all six, while yielding two runs or less, and hasn’t allowed any runs at all in his past couple of assignments, spanning 14 innings. With all of this in mind, Graveman could be a sneaky +140 play as a road ’dog.
Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins | 8:10 p.m. EST
It really wasn’t long ago at all when Justin Verlander (0-2, 6.75 ERA) was easily cruising through any lineup that was set before him, regularly doing so every five days. That would be in reference to the 2011-2012 era of Major League Baseball, where Verlander was on top of the world, even winning both the AL MVP and Cy Young awards in ’11. Since then, however, Verlander has fallen, with injuries playing a role in his decline, and that’s why he only made his season debut about a month ago. He’s shown some signs of the old Verlander, like when he limited a solid Pirates lineup to two runs in six innings, but he’s also surrendered six runs or more in two of his four outings, hence his ugly ERA at the moment. In the process, he’s also allowed a whopping six home runs, and his K/BB ratio does not look good either, sitting at 12/10 in 22.2 innings. Will Verlander even get near where he once was? The linesmakers have set the over/under at 8.5, and remember, Detroit just recently had one of the greatest ‘over’ streaks in history, winning such bets in a remarkable 19 consecutive games, before it was snapped last night in game one of this series.
Tonight’s starter for the opposing Twins, Ervin Santana (0-0, 2.25 ERA), only recently made his season debut as well. In fact, it was just five days ago when Minnesota’s biggest free-agent pickup entering 2015 was on the mound for the club for the first time this campaign. This was because Santana was tagged with an 80-game suspension that was related to PEDs shortly before Opening Day, and now that we’re at the halfway point, the Twins are free to finally unleash their prized signing from this past offseason. To the veteran’s credit, he churned out a very impressive debut with his new team on Sunday, holding the Royals -- one of baseball’s best offenses -- to two runs over eight sharp innings, scattering three hits and three walks, while striking out eight. That’s just how Minnesota could have drawn it up, and they’ll hope he can duplicate that performance in his second outing against another hard-hitting lineup, which also happens to still be missing Miguel Cabrera. Santana and the Twins are -125 favorites in tonight’s affair.
Philadelphia Phillies at San Francisco Giants | 10:15 p.m. EST
His days virtually numbered in a Philadelphia Phillies uniform, Cole Hamels (5-6, 3.02 ERA) is looking to go out strong before he is inevitably dealt to a Major League contender in the coming weeks. After all, Hamels will probably go down as one of the greatest Phillies starting pitchers in the somewhat storied history of their franchise, so we could be winding down to his final hurrah. Although his team is decisively saddled with the label of being the worst team in baseball, Hamels has been enjoying one of his finest seasons to date, as he’s really been as consistent as anybody when you look at his game log. The ten-year veteran -- with all of those years being spent in Philadelphia, remember -- has a splendid 119/35 K/BB ratio in his 113.1 innings of work, while giving up two runs or less in 12 of 17 starts. With a potential duel with last year’s World Series MVP on tap, odds are Hamels will be looking forward to this particular assignment, perhaps making him a solid bet getting +150 odds.
Toeing the rubber for the Giants, of course, is their own elite southpaw ace Madison Bumgarner (8-5, 3.34 ERA), who, like Hamels, is having another standout season. In fact, he’s been good enough to, unlike Hamels, make this year’s NL All-Star team (although you could very easily argue that Hamels was one of the biggest snubs this year, having an All-Star-caliber campaign). Bumgarner has seemingly picked up where he left off from last year’s postseason, possessing a 114/21 K/BB ratio in 113.1 innings (ironically, the same exact amount of innings as Hamels!), and has lived up to his reputation of being a much better home pitcher, with a 2.49 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, and .219 BAA in nine starts at AT&T Park compared to a 4.33 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and .255 BAA in eight outings on the road. Understandably, the over/under has opened at a miniscule 6, but there is a chance it could up to 6.5 leading up to first-pitch.
