MLB Baseball Betting: Baltimore Orioles at Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays’ 2016 season has come down to a single game–the American League Wildcard Playoff Game. The winner advances, the loser goes home. The Toronto Blue Jays deserve some credit for scrapping when they needed to scrap and managing to get the top AL Wild Card spot despite not playing their best baseball down the stretch. Unfortunately, the Blue Jays squandered their chances to win the division. There were several points during the season where Toronto moved into first place and immediately went on a downturn. Maybe they were expecting to just stay close and steal the title at the end but that all became academic when the Boston Red Sox went on an eleven game winning streak to wrap up the AL East title.

The choices of starting pitcher in this matchup are intriguing. Toronto manager John Gibbons chose to go with right hander Marcus Stroman despite not having great numbers against Baltimore this season. Gibbons said that he likes Stroman’s ‘confidence’, swagger and mound presence. Simply put, he thinks he’s got the ‘competitive fire’ that can make the difference in a single game shootout situation. Stroman’s recent statline is interesting–he’s pitched well with a 2.70 ERA and a 1.200 WHIP in his L3 but the Blue Jays scored a total of 3 runs in that stretch and lost two of those games. The Jays were shut out in both of these losses which included a 9/29 4-0 loss to the Orioles.

Chris Tillman has a better YTD stat line and particularly on the road where he’s got a 2.97 ERA and a 1.125 WHIP with the Orioles winning 22 of his 30 starts overall and 10 of 14 on the road. Very evenly matched series head to head this season with Toronto winning 10 of 19 meetings overall and 6 of 10 at home. Both teams are very similar in their approach–they win and lose via the long ball. Both hit right handed pitching very well. The Jays averaged 4.9 runs per game against right handers this year while the Orioles averaged 4.7 runs per game. This game looks like a coin flip and Tillman likely gives Baltimore a pitching edge. We’ll take the price with the Orioles.

BET BALTIMORE ORIOLES +140 OVER TORONTO BLUE JAYS