MLB Baseball Betting: Boston Red Sox at Toronto Blue Jays

It might be a little early to say that the Toronto Blue Jays are in a ‘downward spiral’ but things aren’t going well for Canada’s team. They’ve lost 4 straight and 7 of 10 and dropped the opener of a very important series with the Boston Red Sox losing 13-3 at the Rogers Centre on Friday. The Red Sox are now in first place with a two game lead over the slumping Blue Jays, a 3 game lead over the water treading Baltimore Orioles (5-5 L10) and a 4 game lead over the red hot New York Yankees (winners of 6 straight and 8 of 10). The wild card standings are also getting more competitive–the Jays still have the advantage in the top spot. They don’t have much of one–they lead the two teams tied for the second wild card spot (Baltimore and Detroit) by one game, the New York Yankees by 2 games, the Houston Astros by 2.5 games, the Seattle Mariners by 3.5 games and the Kansas City Royals by 4 games. If you do the math you’ll see that’s 7 teams separated by a total of 5 games vying for only two spots.

It’ll be a battle of left handers on Saturday as the Jays try to stop the bleeding and send J.A. Happ who hasn’t looked particularly sharp of late. He hasn’t pitched *that* badly but he did leave his last start after just 2 2/3 innings which makes his L3 ERA look worse than it is. Still, he’s nowhere near his YTD form. Overall, he’s got a 3.34 ERA and a 1.180 WHIP with a 3.05 ERA and a 1.213 WHIP at the Rogers Centre. More importantly, Toronto has won 20 of his 27 starts overall for a +10 unit profit–one of the best in baseball. At home, the Jays are 11-2 in his starts (+7.3 units). The matchup is less favorable to the Jays than usual since Boston hits left handed pitching well averaging 5.2 runs per game.

Boston will start lefthander Eduardo Rodgriguez who has been fairly mediocre this year but has looked good in his recent assignments–well, at least two of them. For the year he’s got a 4.83 ERA with a 1.305 WHIP, a 4.19 road ERA with a 1.233 WHIP and a L3 ERA of 2.60 with a 0.750 WHIP. He went about his L3 ERA in a strange manner hanging goozeegs in two of the games and allowing 5 ER in 5 1/3 innings in the other. The Jays have lost money against LHP (20-19 -6 units) and haven’t been especially productive against them putting up 4.2 runs per game and hitting .235.

BET BOSTON RED SOX +135 OVER TORONTO BLUE JAYS