MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at Los Angeles Angels
The song remains the same–the Toronto Blue Jays lose 8-1 to the Tampa Bay Rays at the Rogers Centre on Wednesday. They drop 2 of 3 to the last place Jays and that leaves them in third place in the AL East. The Jays have lost 7 of 8 and while they’re still in range to take the division they’ve got to start playing better. Heading into this game the Boston Red Sox lead the division with a one game lead over the second place Baltimore Orioles and a two game lead over the third place Jays. And don’t sleep on the New York Yankees who are the hottest team in the division at the moment winning 7 of 10. They’re now 2 games behind the third place Jays and 4 games out of first.
The slumping Los Angeles Angels should be the perfect matchup for the Jays to get some wins. Of course ‘on paper’ so was Tampa Bay. The Angels have lost 7 of 10 and have generally been one of the biggest disappointments of the season with a record of 63-82 -16.1 units. The only thing that you can say in their favor here is that they’ve been ‘less bad’ against left handed pitching with a 18-20 record for a -1.2 unit loss. Then again, they average 3.9 runs per game against southpaws which is a full half run less than their overall average.
Daniel Wright makes his 4th start of the year and only his second since June. If the Jays can’t hit him they’ve got some big problems. Wright has a 6.75 ERA and a 1.650 WHIP and the Angels have lost 2 of his 3 starts. In his only start since June (9/10 against Texas) he went 5 innings allowing 6 hits, 2 HR and 4 ER. Toronto has pounded right handers this year–only Boston and Colorado have scored more runs against them. Toronto will counter with J.A. Happ who is coming off a really nice start at home against Boston where he went 6 innings allowing 4 hits and 2 ER.
Some concern about Happ’s career performance against the Angels–in 5 career starts his teams are 0-5 and Happ has a 7.83 ERA. With the other three AL East contenders in action on Thursday there’s really no option other than a Toronto win.
BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS -165 OVER LOS ANGELES ANGELS
