MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at New York Yankees

The Toronto Blue Jays beat Tampa Bay on Sunday 5-3 to avoid the sweep in their weekend series. Despite losing 2 of 3 to the Rays they find themselves in sole possession of first place as they head to Yankee Stadium for three games against the New York Yankees. This series could be huge for New York–they’re 6.5 games out of first place and they could vault into contention with a good showing here. Toronto needs to win as well just to keep pace with the Boston Red Sox (1 game back) and Baltimore Orioles (3 games back). This is an important week for the Jays as they’ll play these three games in New York against the Yankees before returning home for a three game weekend series against the second place Boston Red Sox over the weekend.

The Blue Jays will start R.A. Dickey for this game and he’s been fairly decent of late and Toronto has won two of his last three starts. Even the loss in that sequence can’t be blamed on Dickey. Overall this year, Dickey has a 4.32 ERA with a 1.341 WHIP, a 3.39 road ERA with a 1.270 WHIP and a 3.06 L3 ERA with a 1.415 WHIP. Toronto is 11-16 in his starts overall, 6-6 in his road starts and 2-1 in his last three. The Yankees have turned a profit against right handed pitching this year putting up a record of 53-47 +3.3 units.

New York will counter with right hander Masahiro Tanaka who has been solid all season and exceptional of late. Overall, he’s got a 3.17 ERA and a 1.064 WHIP and at home he’s got a 4.17 ERA and a 1.085 WHIP. The Yankees have won 20 of his 27 starts this season and at +12.8 units he’s the third most profitable pitcher in baseball. New York is 11-2 +8.8 units in his home starts. He’s been almost unhittable over his last three starts–19 2/3 innings pitched, 15 hits, 2 ER and 18 strikeouts against 1 walk. That’s a 0.92 ERA and a 0.813 WHIP in this last three assignments.

The kneejerk reaction is to keep riding Tanaka’s form but we’d rather take Toronto as +120 underdogs. They hit right handers very well and have won 9 of 12 meetings with the Yankees this year including 4 of 6 at Yankee Stadium.

BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS +120 OVER NEW YORK YANKEES