MLB Baseball Betting: Boston Red Sox at Toronto Blue Jays
The AL East race is heating up and the Toronto Blue Jays need to start winning to stay in the thick of things. Toronto has lost five of their last six games dropping 2 of 3 to the Rays in Tampa followed by a 3 game sweep at the hands of the New York Yankees. That has left the division as tight as its been in a few months. The Boston Red Sox are currently in first place with a 1 game advantage over the Blue Jays. The Baltimore Orioles are in third place 2 games behind Boston. And don’t look now but the Yankees are about to reassert themselves onto the picture. Pending the outcome of their game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night they’re 4.5 games out of first and have won 4 straight.
The Blue Jays do hold the top wild card spot in the American League but that’s also a very tenuous position. They’re 1 game up on the other AL wild card team, the Baltimore Orioles. There’s also plenty of competition right behind. All told, there are 7 teams within 5 games vying for two wild card spots. Toronto can hardly feel secure even as they sit on top of the wildcard standings.
Boston will start right hander Rick Porcello. His numbers aren’t anything special but he’s gotten the job done in a big way. Porcello has a 3.23 ERA and a 1.023 WHIP overall, a 3.42 ERA and a 1.014 WHIP on the road and a L3 ERA of 3.32 with a 0.877 WHIP. His overall W/L record is most impressive–Boston has won 21 of his 28 starts this year though they’re just 7-7 on the road. As his numbers suggest, the real strength of Porcello is his consistency–the Red Sox can pencil him in every few days and be confident that he’ll give them a chance to win.
Marco Estrada starts for Toronto–he’s got similar numbers to Porcello except his L3 ERA is poor–6.35. The Jays are 13-11 in his starts including 6-6 at the Rogers Centre and 1-2 in his last three games. This is a spot where the Jays *need* to win but we’ll go with the superior form of the road team.
BET BOSTON RED SOX -105 OVER TORONTO BLUE JAYS
