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Wild-Card Round MLB Betting Matchups & Odds with Expert Predictions
by Alan Matthews

Want more proof that Major League Baseball is a "what have you done for me lately" sport when it comes to managers? Interesting story came out over the weekend that if the Mets had lost their game on Aug. 13 to the San Diego Padres that Manager Terry Collins would have been fired right then despite leading the team to the pennant last year. The Mets entered that Aug. 13 game on a four-game losing streak and had slipped one game below .500. But they overcame a blown save from Jeurys Familia with two outs in the ninth to win in 11 innings. Exactly one week later, the Mets won a game in San Francisco to end a three-game losing streak and they have the best record in baseball since. But I will be curious if Collins is in trouble should the Mets lose in the wild-card game on Wednesday.

Giants at Mets (-108, 6)

Game is Wednesday and the winner takes on the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS. I guarantee you that the Cubs are privately thrilled that each team's ace will go in this matchup and thus would likely only be available once in the NLDS. San Francisco clinched the second NL wild-card spot with Sunday's 7-1 home victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Of course the Giants have won the World Series each even-numbered year this decade.

This is probably the best wild-card game pitching matchup ever. It's lefty Madison Bumgarner (15-9, 2.74), the 2014 World Series MVP, for the Giants. He's pretty amazing in his postseason career, going 7-3 with a 2.14 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP with just 63 hits allowed in 88.1 innings. Bumgarner won his final start of the regular season, giving up three runs and eight hits over 7.1 innings on Friday against the Dodgers. He finished second in the NL in innings pitched (226.2) and complete games (four), third in strikeouts (251), fourth in ERA and WHIP (1.02). Bumgarner faced the Mets twice during the season. He won at home on Aug. 18, giving up four runs and six hits over five innings with six strikeouts. On May 1 at Citi Field, Bumgarner also won by throwing six shutout innings with seven strikeouts. Yoenis Cespedes is 3-for-10 career off him with three strikeouts. This could be Cespedes' final game as a Met as he is expected to opt out of his contract and become a free agent. Jay Bruce is 3-for-21 off Bumgarner with a homer and four RBIs. Kelly Johnson is 7-for-20.

It's Noah Syndergaard (14-9, 2.60) for New York. He finished third in the NL in ERA and fourth in strikeouts (218). Syndergaard most recently pitched last Tuesday at the Marlins and allowed a run and five hits over six innings with eight strikeouts. He was lined up to start Sunday if needed but the Mets had nothing to play for then. He pitched in San Francisco on Aug. 21 and dominated with eight shutout innings and 11 strikeouts in a victory. Syndergaard lost at home to the Giants on May 1 (5.2 IP, 4 ER). Hunter Pence is 1-for-5 off him with a homer. Buster Posey is 3-for-6. Brandon Belt is 0-for-6 with three strikeouts. The Giants are likely to try and run on Syndergaard when possible. Would-be base stealers were successful on 48 of 57 steal attempts against him this year. That's the most successful steals against a pitcher since Hideo Nomo allowed 52 for the Boston Red Sox in 2001.

Key trends: The Giants are 1-4 in Bumgarner's past five road starts vs. teams with a winning record. The Mets are 4-1 in Syndergaard's past five on seven or more days of rest. The Giants are 4-0 in Bumgarner's past four at the Mets. The under is 7-0 in Syndergaard's past seven vs. teams with a winning record.

Early lean: The Mets won the season series 4-3 -- that's why they are hosting this game -- and I like them here as hard as it is to go against Bumgarner. Go under.

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

MLB

NL Wild Card game is Wednesday.

Giants @ Mets

Bumgarner is 1-1, 3.54 in his last three starts; seven of his last ten starts went over total. SF is 9-8 in his road starts, 3-1 in his last four. He is 2-0, 3.27 against the Mets this year. Syndergaard is 4-2, 2.06 in his last seven starts; three of his last four went over. Mets lost four of his last six home starts. He is 1-1, 2.63 against the Giants this year.

Giants are 3-4 vs New York this year, with 10.6 runs/game scored. SF won its last four games to make playoffs after a dismal second half of season- they had best record in MLB at All-Star break. Mets are only Wild Card that had couple days to enjoy it and set up starter for this round. NY is 7-3 in last 10 games, but played also-rans the last two weeks. Last time they played a good team was Washington on September 14.

Giants won World Series is 2010, ’12, ’14; Bochy is 42-30 in postseason games as a manager. Collins made playoffs LY for first time in 11 years as a skipper (8-6); now he is in postseason for second straight year.

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

MLB

NL Wild Card game is Wednesday.

Giants @ Mets

Bumgarner is 1-1, 3.54 in his last three starts; seven of his last ten starts went over total. SF is 9-8 in his road starts, 3-1 in his last four. He is 2-0, 3.27 against the Mets this year. Syndergaard is 4-2, 2.06 in his last seven starts; three of his last four went over. Mets lost four of his last six home starts. He is 1-1, 2.63 against the Giants this year.

Giants are 3-4 vs New York this year, with 10.6 runs/game scored. SF won its last four games to make playoffs after a dismal second half of season- they had best record in MLB at All-Star break. Mets are only Wild Card that had couple days to enjoy it and set up starter for this round. NY is 7-3 in last 10 games, but played also-rans the last two weeks. Last time they played a good team was Washington on September 14.

Giants won World Series is 2010, ’12, ’14; Bochy is 42-30 in postseason games as a manager. Collins made playoffs LY for first time in 11 years as a skipper (8-6); now he is in postseason for second straight year.

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

2016 Playoff Outlook
By Bruce Marshall

American League

Perhaps fueled by the memory of a painful playoff exit (as was the case with last year's Royals), the Texas Rangers (2/1), who bitterly recall blowing a 2-0 lead (with the series coming back home to boot) against the Blue Jays in last year's ALDS, have emerged as the AL's most consistent team this season. They have secured home-field edge as far as they can progress in the postseason (thanks also to the AL's 4-2 win in the All-Star Game at San Diego back on July 12).

No AL team has been able to score runs with the combination of speed and power as have the Rangers (who added extra pop at the trade deadline when acquiring C Jonathan Lucroy from the Brewers), and the defense has tightened this season with SS Elvis Andrus emerging as a force.

Manager Jeff Bannister likely goes with a four-man rotation in the playoffs, with Cole Hamels at the top, followed by Yu Darvish, Colby Lewis, and Martin Perez, though Hamels could be moved into the Perez slot if Texas faces elimination in Game 4 of the ALDS. Lewis, however, enters postseason as a mild concern after going winless in his last five starts.

Meanwhile, the bullpen, considered a possible weakness earlier in the season, had a scoreless streak approaching 30 innings into the last weekend of the regular season, the second-longest streak in franchise history (the 1969 Senators went 35 2/3 scoreless innings in April of 1969).

The home edge is important, as Texas recorded an AL-best 53-28 home mark in Arlington this season...enough, we think, to give the Rangers a real shot at the ring and a chance to erase the bitter taste of the painful 2011 World Series loss to the Cards in the process.

What will happen in the ALDS between the Boston Red Sox (9/4) and Cleveland Indians (4/1)? Since just before the All-Star break, the Bosox rotation has posted the best ERA (3.54) in the AL, which helped the Sox pull away from the rest of the AL East in September. Rick Porcello, with his MLB-high 22 wins, could win the AL Cy Young Award, while the Sox have won nine of David Price's last ten starts.

Meanwhile, three of the top five hitters in the AL (Mookie Betts, Dustin Pedroia, and David Ortiz) are in the Boston lineup, with Pedroia recently recording a 30-game hit streak. Betts could win the MVP, Hanley Ramirez the Comeback Player of the Year, while Big Papi, unlike Kobe Bryant's one-night highlight in his goodbye campaign, has written a season-long fairytale farewell (and how, the AL co-leader in RBIs!), adding extra emotion to the mix.

The concern for Boston entering the postseason centers around recent erratic efforts from closer Craig Kimbrel, suffering from control issues that pitching coach Carl Willis believes are due to mechanical flaws that can be corrected. If Willis is wrong and Kimbrel continues to struggle, however, we're not sure the Bosox, for all of their positives, get past the Tribe in the ALDS. There has already been a bit of magic this year in Cleveland with the Cavs winning the city's first pro sports title in 52 years.

Can the Tribe, whose own title drought extends 68 years, follow suit? We'd have felt better about Cleveland's chances had injuries not hit the pitching staff down the stretch, with Carlos Carrasco (finger) definitely out for the postseason and Danny Salazar trying to fight his way back from a forearm injury. Staff co-ace Corey Kluber also gave the team a scare within the last week with a quadriceps strain, but likely is ready for Game 2 of the ALDS on Friday.

Remember that Terry Francona's side has been resilient all season, somehow managing to rank second in AL runs scored with a mostly non-descript lineup that has been shuffled and re-shuffled (the same eight position players haven't started in the same eight positions for more than two games in a row all season!), with valuable jack-of-all trades Jose Ramirez having started in four positions. Francona's team has found a lot of ways to win besides leaning on its rotation, and Cleveland will have home edge vs. the Bosox.

We suppose if either of the AL Wild Card entries make an impression in the playoffs, it will be the Toronto Blue Jays (11/2), even though they did not roar down the stretch as they did a year ago, as an offensive short-circuit in September forced the Jays to scramble just to qualify. The Jays still have six batters who have bashed 20 or more homers, but they've mostly cooled in the last few weeks. The staff leads the league in quality starts, with Aaron Sanches and JA Happ a combined 35-6, but Toronto needs its bats to reawaken in a hurry to have a chance to advance.


National League

For the past six months, hype for the Chicago Cubs (10/11) has been on overload, with their first World Series appearance in 71 years and first title in 108 years being treated like a fait accompli in Wrigleyville. We caution, however, that the real record to note is 15-13...the Cubs' mark vs. NL Playoff teams this season. There are also concerns about the recent form of the starting rotation outside of Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester.

Otherwise, however, it is going to take some effort to knock out the Cubbies, who, among other positives, are now getting extra mileage from versatile Ben Zobrist, who rediscovered his power stroke late in the season and whose ability to switch-hit comes in handy. Joe Maddon's pitching staff led the bigs in most relevant stat categories, while the offense and its various power sources were also among MLB leaders.

Moreover, the Cubs have a taste of the postseason after winning the Wild Card game at Pittsburgh and dominating the Cardinals in the NLDS before getting swept by the Mets in the NLCS a year ago. There might be a chance to gain revenge on the Mets in the NLDS, but looming worryingly could also be the Giants, the team Maddon would probably not rather face in the NLDS.

Something has got to give in the other NLDS that will feature the Washington Nationals (27/10) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (4/1), both notorious postseason flops in recent years. Indeed, the Nats franchise has only once won a playoff series, and that came in the jerry-rigged 1981 strike season when, as the Montreal Expos, it won an NL East playoff vs. the Phils before being cruelly denied a World Series berth by the Dodgers and a game-deciding homer by current LA radio announcer Rick Monday.

In 2016, however, it might be an edge to the Nats, partly because Washington has home-field edge, and partly due to matchups. Dusty Baker's fireballer Max Scherzer will confront Clayton Kershaw in Game One, and it is not lost on observers how Kershaw, recently activated from the DL, has never dominated in the postseason, tending to "throw" rather than pitch, as he has often seemed to try to simply blow away opposing batters, often to his detriment. Indeed, the expected LA rotation of Kershaw, midseason addition Rich Hill, and Japanese import Kenta Maeda does not have much of a track record in the postseason.

Though Baker will have legitimate fear pitching to Dodger 1B Adrian Gonzalez, the Blue lineup is filled with a lot of swing-and-miss hitters that the Nats staff has mostly feasted upon this season. Washington also has an edge in manufacturing runs with MVP candidate Daniel Murphy and star rookie Trae Turner, and can build an inning without help of the long ball, and 3B Anthony Rendon has gotten red hot in the second half of the season, while LA has also had season-long issues vs. lefties..

The main concern for the Nats might be closer Mark Melancon, added from the Pirates at the trade deadline, but too often struggling with command. If Melancon doesn't implode, however, expect the Nats to advance...and have no fear of the Cubs, if that is indeed the matchup, in the NLCS.

It might be asking a bit much of the New York Mets (10/1) to make it back to the World Series, especially considering how they have to go the Wild Card route this season and will be proceeding with a depleted rotation minus injured Matt Harvey, Jacob de Grom, and Steven Matz, all in the 2015 playoff rotation. But rookies Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo have stepped into the rotation that still features Noah Syndergaard at the top, and after dropping to 60-62 in mid-August, the Mets recorded the MLB's best record thereafter.

On the other hand, the San Francisco Giants (15/1) recorded the NL's worst record after the All-Star break (at which point they had the best MLB mark, even ahead of the Cubs), but recovered just in time to put away the Dodgers this past weekend to squeeze into the postseason. They've been shut out nine times since the break, and the bullpen just had a stretch where it blew half of its leads entering the ninth inning over a near one-month stretch. But it's an even-numbered year, and Madison Bumgarner now has Johnny Cueto pitching right behind him in the rotation. Bumgarner will have to get past the Mets' Syndergaard on the road in the NL Wild Card game, but we have learned never to count out a Bruce Bochy-managed team in the postseason, though it would be Bochy's neatest trick yet if the Giants replicate their 2010-12-14 exploits.

Maybe it is the year of the Cubs, and the chance to bury those century-old demons. But this might also be the year of a Series for oldtimers who recall the Senators moving out of D.C. to Dallas-Fort Worth after 1971 (and loitering onto the field in the 9th inning of the Sens' last game at RFK Stadium, vs. the Yankees, causing a forfeit!) and will get a kick out of a Texas-Washington World Series instead. And the first mentions on the sports pages of former Senators-Rangers owner Bob Short in more than 40 years.

Stay tuned.

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

'Do-or-Die N.L. Wild Card game'

San Francisco Giants at New York Mets October 5, 8:05 EST

New York Mets (87-75, -$755) and San Francisco Giants (87-75, -$754) square off Citi Field with the winner getting a shot at major league's best team the Chicago Cubs (103-58, +$299). Mets took 4 of 7 meetings this season with 'Over' gamblers cashing in six of those contests. Opening odds have the Mets -$1.15 favorite with the total set at 6.0 runs across all shops.

Noah Syndergaard gets the start for Terry Collins' crew. The righthander enters 14-9 on the campaign with Mets 19-11 in his 30 starts recording 17 'Over', 13 'Under' in those games. Syndergaard was more successful in an opposing park this season than in front of the home audience. Away, the hurler posted an 8-3 record with Mets 11-3 in his 14 road starts, at home he was 6-6 with his club 8-8 in 16 starts. Syndergaard carries a 1-5 skid his last seven tossing at home (2-5 TSR). Mets are 1-2 in Syndergaard's three career starts vs Giants.

Bruce Bochy will be handing starting duties to Madison Bumgarner in this do-or-die game. The southpaw carries a 15-9 mark to the hill with Giants 20-14 recording 17 'Over', 17 'Under' in his 34 starts this season. As a team, the Giants have been dominant vs Mets with Bumgarner racking up 5 wins, 1 loss including a perfect 4-0 in Mets backyard.

A telling baseball betting stats leaps out in this one. The Giants are an eye-opening 6-1 in Bumgarner's last seven post season starts, 9-3 the past 12 including a perfect 5-0 in an opposing park.

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Wednesday’s six-pack

Six NFL trends to ponder, with Week 5 coming up……..

— Arizona is 8-4 in last 12 tries as a road favorite.

— Packers covered 9 of last 11 post-bye games.

— San Diego is 12-2-2 as a divisional road underdog.

— Detroit is 1-7-1 in last nine games as a home dog.

— Patriots are 31-11 vs spread coming off a loss, but 4-13 as a road fave.

— Indianapolis is 3-8 in last 11 games as a home favorite.

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Mike Wynn

Bonus Play: CFB Ball St +12½ Over Central Michigan Saturday

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Razor Sharp

FREE PICK FOR WEDNESDAY: Take SAN FRANCISCO/NY METS OVER the total of 6 runs!

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Golden Dragon Sports

Free Pick NY Mets Sydergard -110 MLB Wednesday

 

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Platinum Plays

Free Pick: CFB Saturday BYU/Michigan St Over 50 Points

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Sharp Bettor

Sharp Bettor's Free Pick for Wednesday, October 5, 2016 8:00 PM

(301) GEORGIA SOUTHERN VS (302) ARKANSAS STATE

Play OVER the total

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Huddle Up Sports

Bonus Play Georgia Southern/Arkansas State under 53

 

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The Vegas Steam Line

Your free winner for Wednesday: Take KENT -1 over Buffalo (Early Sat. CFB Pick)

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Red Dog Sports

Spain vs Italy

Bonus Play Draw when ITALY and SPAIN meet in soccer on Thursday.

The total is set at 2 so they are expecting a low score. I think it ends 1-1.

Spain 1

Italy 1

 

[Can'tPickaWinner2]

Sean Murphy

Giants vs Mets

My 8* Free Selection San Francisco over New York at 8:05 pm et on Wednesday.

The Giants always seem to find their way into the mix for the N.L. crown and here they are again, playing in a one-game Wild Card showdown against the Mets on Wednesday night in Queens. I like their chances of advancing to the NLDS with Madison Bumgarner on the hill.

Bumgarner has proven to be one of the best playoff performers in recent history and I expect to see him add another chapter to his storied career on Wednesday night. After stumbling against the Padres (but still guiding his team to a victory) two starts back he rebounded with a terrific outing against the Dodgers last Friday night, giving up three earned runs over 7 1/3 effective innings. The Giants have given him plenty of offensive support this season, particularly on the road, where he owns a winning record and a solid 3.39 ERA and 1.12 WHIP. Bumgarner has given up one earned run or less in four of his six career starts against New York.

Noah Syndergaard will counter for the Mets. Despite pitching well, he only managed to post a .500 record at home during the regular season, largely due to a lack of run support. That could be an issue again on Wednesday. While Syndergaard did toss eight shutout innings against the Giants in a victory back on August 21st in San Francisco, he's winless in two career home starts against them.

The Giants won't be fazed by heading across the country for this one-game showdown. Note that they've posted a winning record away from home this season and I'm confident this seasoned club will be moving on to face the Cubs in the NLDS. Take San Francisco (8*).