ON FIRE: BIG AL's BASEBALL TOTAL OF THE MONTH!
At 1:35 pm, our selection is on the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox 'under' the total. The two starters in this game which closes out the first half of the season for both teams have a combined one Major League start and 18 Major League innings among them. Baltimore righthander Mitch Atkins has one start with the Orioles (seven previous relief appearances with the Cubs) and that first Major League start was a good one too, as Atkins threw six innings last Tuesday, allowing just one earned run on four hits against the Rangers. Meanwhile, righthander Kyle Weiland of the Red Sox will be making his MLB debut this afternoon, and Weiland is a guy who was chosen in the third round of the 2008 MLB draft by the Red Sox and has worked his way up through all of the Minor League levels to get to this point and he's had some pretty good results going 8-6 with a 3.00 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 17 starts this season at AAA Pawtucket. Baltimore has been having trouble scoring runs lately, having plated more than four runs on just two occasions in their last nine games and we're working with an inflated total of 10.5 runs due to the pitchers' inexperience. Take the 'under.' As always, good luck...Al McMordie.