| Yesterday | 0 | 1 | 0.00 | -2.10 |
| Last 30 Days | 3 | 2 | 0.00 | +2.28 |
| Season to Date | 3 | 2 | 0.00 | +2.28 |
<tbody>
</tbody>
All plays are for 2 units
HOME TEAM IN CAPS
Wednesday, April 2
Seattle +129 over L.A. ANGELS
Seattle has hit three jacks and has scored 18 runs in the first two games and when a team is feeling it like Seattle is, they can’t wait to get back to the park. Now these hot-bats will face a back-of-the rotation starter in Hector Santiago. There were openings in the back-end of the Anaheim rotation and Santiago snuck into one of them. Santiago, who came over from the White Sox via a trade, impressed early in spring training but he ended it with a rough start against the Diamondbacks' Triple-A squad in which he gave up six runs in five-plus innings. Despite the outwardly impressive numbers, there are reasons to beware: His ERA looks good, but he’s been helped by favorable strand percentages the past two years. Santiago’s xERA says this isn’t the skill set of a sub-4.00 pitcher and he walks too many batters (113 BB in 224 career innings). Santiago also gives up a lot of fly balls as evidenced by his 37%/44% groundball/fly-ball split over his career. Going from US Cellular Field (RH HR +38%) to Angel Stadium (RH HR -10%) will help but right now the Mariners have some pop in their bats. Santiago’s fastball velocity is also heading in the wrong direction, as it declined from 93.8 in 2011 to 91.8 in 2013. Lastly and another concern for Santiago is that he had a big IP boost from 2012 to 2013. Even with the move to Anaheim, beware. This is a risky skill set that could hurt your bankroll.
James Paxton went 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA in 24 innings for Seattle as a September call-up. Paxton features a mid-90s heater, a changeup he'll use anytime and a curve as his out pitch. Paxton has maintained a 55% groundball rate throughout his minor-league career and matched that in the aforementioned 24 innings last September. Erosion of command on the way up the ladder is a concern but as 25-year-old ground-baller with three plus pitches, there's just too much upside in him to ignore as a pooch against the Halos. Paxton certainly has value this early in the season and we’re on it.
Minnesota +129 over CHICAGO
2:10 PM EST. Kevin Correia is not going to dazzle anyone and we wouldn’t back him as the chalk with counterfeit money. However, he’s not the chalk here and he’s consistent enough to at least give his offense a chance to go off. Skills don't get more consistent than Correia’s, as there's little variance in yearly xERA or skills. That’s not necessarily a good thing because Correia’s pitch-to-contact approach minimizes his value and his 2010 shows how thin the margin for error is. That said, this one has nothing to do with backing Correia and everything to do with taking back a tag against Felipe Paulino.
Paulino will pitch his first major league game since having Tommy John surgery in July 3 of 2012. As he worked his way back from TJS in the minors last season, Paulino fanned 26 in 27.2 IP, but he walked 15 and allowed 35 hits. The same pattern emerged in spring training, as he struck out 21 in 22.2 IP but walked 10 and gave up a whopping 32 hits, the second most of all AL pitchers. Not having pitched in the majors for a year and a half and struggling to throw strikes and get hitters out in spring training is precisely the type of pitcher we’re happy to take back a price against. The Twinkies are not a very good team but remember that every team in baseball will win 60 games this year and for the Twins, this could certainly be one of the them. Overlay.
MILWAUKEE -1 +112 over Atlanta
1:10 PM EST. With injuries to two of their best starters, Atlanta was forced to bring in some outside help and ended up with Aaron Harang, who signed with Atlanta on March 24. Really? Harang was released by Seattle in August after an absolutely brutal run (5-11, 5.76 in 120 IP), got picked up by the Mets and did some competent work for them in September. Skills were reasonably in line with prior years that delivered better results, but don't get sucked in. "Competent" is the upside; "bankroll-killer" is the downside. This is Harang’s sixth team in the past 12 months, not years. He has a job only because of an inordinate amount of injuries to starting pitchers throughout the majors. Of the 107 pitchers in the majors to work at least 140 innings last season, Harang had the third worst ERA in that group and the worse xERA and that was pitching the majority of those innings at the AL’s friendliest pitcher’s park. Aaron Harang is a pure stiff that has maybe four starts left in his career.
The Brewers have not gone off yet with just four runs in their first two games but that was facing a couple of very good looking Braves' starters. Things get much easier here for Milwaukee’s offense and we also love that Matt Garza makes his first start in his new digs because the fans will be extra jacked up in support of this significant signing. Early in his career, Garza’s poor skill foundation held him back. The last three seasons his skills have blossomed. A stress fracture in his elbow shortened his 2012 and 2013 seasons but his arm looked stronger as the season went along in 2013. His four-seam fastball velocity jumped from 92.8 in the 1H to 93.4 mph in the 2H and his swinging K% leaped from 9% to 11% over the same period. He finally got a better feel for his changeup, as he had a career-high 13% swinging K% with that pitch. If his elbow holds up, Garza could finally post a long-awaited breakout this season. He also figures to get plenty of run support here.
BALTIMORE +103 over Boston
Not convinced that the Red Sox should be favored here. John Lackey shed extra pounds and distractions in driven return from TJS, coaxing his strongest skills in years. Ks and groundballs were plentiful in the first half and 69%/0% dominant start/disaster start split brought him home in the 2H. With a clean arm and a clear head, Lackey stands a fair chance of repeating but we’re not buyers this early. Lackey had a rough spring with a 6.27 ERA over 24 innings. He’s been a very slow starter in April over the past three years with an ERA of 4.85 and that includes two starts at this park in which he had a BAA of .296 to go along with an ERA of 4.77. The Orioles have a legit shot of being the highest scoring team in baseball and it sure doesn’t hurt that current O’s have a solid .276 BA against Lackey in 254 career AB’s.
On Aug 22 of last season Ubaldo Jimenez was 9-7 with a 4.00 ERA. He then knocked out eight straight pure quality starts with a 71/10 K/BB ratio, insisting he did so by finally reconciling his velocity drop and adopting a new pitch mix. Jimenez clearly made some adjustments mid-way through 2013. Yes, strand % and hr/f helped his ERA in the second half but this was clearly a different pitcher, with a big improvement in control and a sustained high strikeout rate. Jimenez claims to have made adjustments to account for his diminished velocity (96 mph fastball as recently as 2010; 92 mph the past two years). The pitch breakdown backs him up; he used his fastball a lot less, with a lot more sliders and split fingered fastballs in 2014. While his W-L record and ERA have been all over the map, xERA says that other than 2012, he’s been a pretty consistent pitcher. The Orioles are no joke and anytime we can take a tag back with them at home when the opposition’s pitcher isn’t a dominant one, we’re almost always going to accept it. No exception here.
