MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies will play the fourth and final game of a somewhat oddly configured four game Interleague set with the Toronto Blue Jays. The series began Monday at the Rogers Centre in Toronto with two games at the home of the Argonauts. It then shifted to Philadelphia for games on Wednesday and Thursday. Toronto will start a big weekend series with AL East co-leaders Baltimore on Friday. This is a very crucial week for the Jays and they’re off to a good start. The reason for the urgency is their recent solid form (6-4 L10) which has put them two games out of first place currently held by the Orioles and Boston Red Sox. The division remains tightly packed, however, and they can’t sleep on the teams behind them. The Tampa Bay Rays have been the hottest team in the American League over the last two weeks winning 8 of 10 and 9 of 13 for the month of June. They’re now just 3.5 games behind the Jays with the New York Yankees–losers of 4 straight–just 4.5 games out.

So far so good during this crucial stretch of games. Toronto won three of four from Baltimore at the Rogers Centre last weekend and have won two of the first three of this series. The best news of all is that the long dormant Blue Jay offense is coming to live and has scored 18 runs in the past two games. Toronto will start lefthander J.A. Happ on Thursday and although he’s pitched reasonably well on the season he’s struggled in his last two starts. He got the decision in his last outing but that had more to do with the Jays’ 11 run outburst on June 11 against Baltimore. Happ went 7 innings allowing 8 hits and 4 earned runs with 3 home runs. It wasn’t like he ‘let up’ after the Jays got a lead either–he gave up 3 runs in the fourth and another in the top of the sixth which gave Baltimore a 4-3 lead heading in the bottom half of the inning. Then his offense bailed him out with a 5 run 6th, 1 run 7th and 2 run 8th. One of the ugliest winning decisions you’ll ever see. He was simply roughed up in his previous start on June 6 at Detroit where the Tigers ran him to the showers in four innings as they went on to win 11-0.

Philadelphia’s anemic offense makes Toronto at their worst look like the 1927 Yankees. They average 3.3 runs per overall, 2.9 runs per at home and 3 runs per against left handed starters. They’ve slumped badly after a decent start to the season and the Jays should take care of business here.

BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS -130 OVER PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES