By Cody “Rob” Tibbitts
What a great Saturday to win some money. You have a little bit of everything this Cinco De Mayo. A perfect day to sit on the couch and bet on the Kentucky Derby, Golf, playoff hockey, playoff basketball and most importantly baseball starting at 1:00 EST.
Indians at Yankees Prediction
Your first game of the day may as well be the best of the day. The Indians take on the Yankees down in the Bronx. The Yankees come in having won nine out of their last ten, including their win over Cleveland Friday night 7-6. Sonny Gray takes the bump for Yankees looking to lock in another series win. Gray comes in with a 1-2 record and a 6.67 ERA. These numbers are a bit deceiving given that he only threw three innings in a couple of starts in April. Gray looks like he’s in the middle of reinventing himself this season working more up in the zone compared to earlier in his career when he preferred to keep the ball down. In his last two starts, he’s given up three runs and two runs respectively. His previous start against Houston was most telling when he worked six innings and only gave up two earned runs. Trevor Bauer toes it up against Gray on Saturday. Bauer comes into this start with a 2-2 record and a 2.45 ERA, and he’s been nothing less than solid this season. Bauer has not given up more than three runs in a game this season, and the three runs happened once to Baltimore on April 20th. Bauer has also been effective all season working late into games giving his team a chance to win. The Indians are 4-6 in their last ten games; however, they have been competitive in nearly all of them. Cleveland’s record of 17-14 is not indicative of what they are capable of. I fully expect both pitchers to be productive working late into the game and handing it over late to dominant bullpens.
Pick: I think this game stays under 9.5 with ease. This is by far my top play of the day. I also think Cleveland at +115 is a great value bet with what we have seen out of them of late.
Giants at Braves Prediction
Don’t look now, but the Braves are eight games above .500. Not to brag, but I had them as a wild card team at the beginning of the year when everyone else wrote them off. I’ll just leave that there for you. Atlanta is at home against the San Francisco Giants, and first pitch is at 7:10. The ageless Brandon McCarthy takes the mound for the Braves. He comes in with a 4-0 record and a 3.09 ERA. Now sure that looks all good, and all the only issue is he has not been consistently working late into games having gotten past the 5th inning once. The Braves downfall is their bullpen or lack thereof. Their middle innings “workload” guys have been average at best this season. McCarthy has given up little to no runs late in his starts, and that has given the Braves bullpen a good chance for them to succeed.
Lefty Ty Blach takes the mound for the Giants looking to keep his early success going. He comes into this game with a 2-3 record and a 4.10 ERA. Blach has been a pleasant surprise for the Giants this season and other than his second start of the season where he was tagged with six runs over four innings, he has been stellar this season for San Francisco. That said, this Giants team has me utterly perplexed. They’re apparently in win-now mode with their offseason moves, but every time I go to write them off, they seem to scramble up a few wins, including their win over Atlanta last night. The Giants are going to win games against average pitching this season, as they’ve done so far, but we’ve seen them struggle when the quality of pitching rises.
Pick: The odds are on the high side, so I lean to the Braves -150, but the Under 9.5 is worthy of a few sheckles.
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Mariners at Angels Prediction
To wrap up your night, we go to the west coast where Angels take on the Mariners. Neither team is playing overwhelmingly great baseball right now. The Mariners year in and year out seem to be that pesky team that appears to be competitive in every game they play, but always fall short of expectations. The last few years they have been an excellent team to bet on early in the season, including this year where they have won seven out their last ten. Tonight they send out Marco Gonzales to hopefully rebound after a tough 5-0 loss to the Angels Friday night. Gonzales comes into tonight with a 3-2 record and an ERA of 5.02. That ERA is skewed mostly because of back to back starts early in the year where he didn’t work past the third inning.
The Angels look to keep the momentum going sending Tyler Skaggs to the mound who comes in with a 3-2 record and a 3.03 ERA. Skaggs has been an incredibly reliable pitcher for the Halos the last six years. We’ve seen throughout his career when he cuts back on the walks and works his fastball “to all corners” he’s incredibly productive. In his last start, he worked five and a third giving up just two earned runs to a potent Yankees lineup. The Angels bats have been red hot lately scoring 27 runs over their last three.
Pick: I will happily be taking the Angels -116.
As always, bet responsibly.