Astros -0.5 (1st 5 Inn.) @1 Unit -102
Oswalt dominated the Reds over his whole career and won all of his 4 starts against CIN in 2008, when they had more or less the same lineup. His 2009 ERA is inflated due to his awful inning against STL and Pujols' grand slam HR, but besides that he looked ok in his last start and way better than during his WBC performances.
Even if I don't really like backing the Astros right now, they hit Cueto hard in 2008 and in his 4 starts against HOU he got lit up for 7.82 ERA and "earned" his 3 losses. Cueto also wasn't sharp in his first start and had once again some control issues.
Like I said, I don't really like Houstons offense right now, Oswalt was far from perfect against STL and the pitcher/batter h2h aren't as bad as the overall performance by CIN against Oswalt would make you think, but Oswalt always had his stuff going against CIN and Cueto seems to be a really good matchup for HOU, so I will back them anyway...
DBacks +0 (1st 5 Innings) @1 Units -139
Dbacks -0.5 (1st 5 Inn.) @2 Units +102
Haren started 2009 with two dominating performances (ERA 2.08, WHIP 0.77) and also performed really well against SFO in 2008 (4 GS, ERA 2.67). Only Fred Lewis and the slumping Renteria have good numbers against him (both without power) and SFO is slumping right now with an average of just 2.7 runs scored per game during their road trip.
ARIs bats finally came two life during the last 2 games and they roughed up Sanchez pretty good in 2008 (4 GS, ERA 8.83, WHIP above 2.00) and in his career (ERA 7.98, WHIP just below 2.00). He threw two great innings in his 1st start of 2009 but then he (once again) hit a wall, lost control over his pitches and was roughed up. If you look at the pitcher/batter numbers ARI did really well against him hittingwise, especially Conor Jackson (9/12 with 2HRs) and if you add in his control problems and the resulting walks, I expect the DBacks to finally score some runs for Haren, while Haren should have a rather easy job of holding Frisco's slumping offense down.
Oswalt dominated the Reds over his whole career and won all of his 4 starts against CIN in 2008, when they had more or less the same lineup. His 2009 ERA is inflated due to his awful inning against STL and Pujols' grand slam HR, but besides that he looked ok in his last start and way better than during his WBC performances.
Even if I don't really like backing the Astros right now, they hit Cueto hard in 2008 and in his 4 starts against HOU he got lit up for 7.82 ERA and "earned" his 3 losses. Cueto also wasn't sharp in his first start and had once again some control issues.
Like I said, I don't really like Houstons offense right now, Oswalt was far from perfect against STL and the pitcher/batter h2h aren't as bad as the overall performance by CIN against Oswalt would make you think, but Oswalt always had his stuff going against CIN and Cueto seems to be a really good matchup for HOU, so I will back them anyway...
DBacks +0 (1st 5 Innings) @1 Units -139
Dbacks -0.5 (1st 5 Inn.) @2 Units +102
Haren started 2009 with two dominating performances (ERA 2.08, WHIP 0.77) and also performed really well against SFO in 2008 (4 GS, ERA 2.67). Only Fred Lewis and the slumping Renteria have good numbers against him (both without power) and SFO is slumping right now with an average of just 2.7 runs scored per game during their road trip.
ARIs bats finally came two life during the last 2 games and they roughed up Sanchez pretty good in 2008 (4 GS, ERA 8.83, WHIP above 2.00) and in his career (ERA 7.98, WHIP just below 2.00). He threw two great innings in his 1st start of 2009 but then he (once again) hit a wall, lost control over his pitches and was roughed up. If you look at the pitcher/batter numbers ARI did really well against him hittingwise, especially Conor Jackson (9/12 with 2HRs) and if you add in his control problems and the resulting walks, I expect the DBacks to finally score some runs for Haren, while Haren should have a rather easy job of holding Frisco's slumping offense down.
