MLB Baseball Betting: Detroit Tigers at Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays keep on rolling. After another victory on Friday–this time 6-0 over the Detroit Tigers–the Jays have won 7 straight and 9 of their last 11. They’ll go for eight in a row on Saturday as they host the Tigers once again in their second to last game of the first half of the season. Detroit hasn’t played badly of late (6-4 L10) but they’re missing a golden opportunity to cut the distance between themselves and the first place Cleveland Indians. The Tribe have scuffled around the .500 mark since their long winning streak ended and are now definitely vulnerable. At the same time, the Tigers need to open up some separation between themselves and the third place (tied) Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals. These teams now trail the Tigers by only 1/2 game and the White Sox in particular have been in very good form of late (7-3 L10).

The Tigers will start lefthander Matt Boyd and he’s almost guaranteed to pitch better today than he has in his most recent starts. He’s started only five games this season, the Tigers have lost 4 (-2.6 units). He’s allowed 21 earned runs in 24 2/3 innings pitched for a 7.66 ERA and he has a 1.541 WHIP. He’s been awful in his three road starts–all Detroit losses–with a 11.08 ERA and 1.769 WHIP. He allowed 16 earned runs in 13 innings of work. Detroit has also lost two of Boyd’s last three starts but take a look at the game that he won in that stretch–it was 6/7/16 at home against Toronto where he pitched 5 1/3 innings giving up 3 hits and 1 earned run. The Blue Jays haven’t been great against left handers at all this season. They’re 12-14 -5.2 units against southpaws but of particular concern is their offensive numbers–they’re hitting .231 and scoring just 3.8 runs per game against lefties. That’s 1.1 runs less per game than for the year to date, and a huge drop from their offensive output during their winning streak where they’ve scored 7.9 runs per game.

Aaron Sanchez has been very sharp in his recent outings (1.64 ERA L3) but with even a mediocre lefthander on the hill a lot of concern about Toronto’s ability to generate offense.

BET DETROIT TIGERS +210 OVER TORONTO BLUE JAYS
BET DETROIT/TORONTO UNDER 10 -110