MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at Texas Rangers

All four MLB divisional series play on Friday including Game 2 of the Toronto Blue Jays’ series with the Texas Rangers. Nothing to complain about regarding the Jays’ performance in Thursday’s opening game. Toronto dominated the Rangers in every phase of the game as Jose Bautista drove in four runs and Marco Estrada pitched 8 1/3 innings of 4 hit baseball en route to a 10-1 Jays’ win. After the Jays slumped late in the season they’ve now won 4 straight and 8 of their last 12. Texas, meanwhile, has lost 5 of 8. The winner of this series will play the winner of the Cleveland Indians/Boston Red Sox series in the American League Championship series.

Toronto will start right hander Aaron Sanchez who has been in very good form of late. Overall, he’s got a 3.05 ERA with a 1.172 WHIP and a 2.56 ERA with a 1.092 WHIP on the road. The Jays have won 18 of 30 Sanchez starts this year including 10 of 17 on the road. They’ve also won 2 of his last 3 with a 1.42 ERA and a 1.000 WHIP. In the last three games he went 19 innings allowing just 11 hits, 3 earned runs with 21 strikeouts and 8 walks. Most impressively, he’s done it all against top flight opposition–at Boston, at Seattle and home against Baltimore.

He’ll be opposed by Yu Darvish, the once dominating right hander that is struggling to regain his form after missing 14 months due to a torn ulnar collateral nerve in his elbow. He hasn’t been bad–a 3.41 ERA in 17 starts this year but has been far from dominating. Texas has won 10 of his 17 starts overall including 6 of 10 at home and 2 of his last 3. Darvish’s 4.26 ERA and 1.228 WHIP at home and 4.00 ERA and 1.000 WHIP is mediocre at best. Darvish has become a much more passionate competitor since his return and manager Jeff Banister is hoping that can revive his team after their Game One beatdown. Darvish looks like he’s on the verge of becoming dominant again–he had a bad start against Oakland on 9/17 but throw that game out and the resulting ‘last three’ starts have him going at least six innings, allowing 1 run or less, 1 walk or less and striking out 9 or more. All teams have a risk of a letdown after winning a rout and the Jays seem especially susceptible to that.

BET TEXAS RANGERS -120 OVER TORONTO BLUE JAYS