MLB Baseball Betting: Detroit Tigers at Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays will wrap up the first half of the Major League Baseball season with a four game series against the Detroit Tigers. The series starts at the Rogers Centre on Thursday and with a fortuitous break or two the Jays could find themselves in first place at the All Star Break. Toronto is on a nice run of late and after completing a three game sweep of the Kansas City Royals they’ve won five straight and 7 of their last nine. They’ve been able to pull past the Boston Red Sox and are now in second place 2.5 games back of the AL East leading Baltimore Orioles. They haven’t dispatched Boston completely, of course, and are just 1/2 game up on the Red Sox.
Detroit is a tough team to figure out. They lost two of three to Cleveland in their most recent series but before that had won six straight. They’ve now won 7 of their last 9 so they’re still a very formful team. Detroit is now 6.5 games back of the AL Central leading Cleveland Indians, one game up on the third place Detroit Tigers and 1.5 games up on the fourth place Kansas City Royals.
The Tigers will start right hander Justin Verlander on Thursday and he’s having a very substandard year. Overall, the Tigers have won 10 of Verlander’s 17 starts as well as 5 of 8 on the road. Verlander has a 4.11 ERA overall (1.102 WHIP) and a 4.08 road ERA (1.038 WHIP). They’ve also won 2 of his last 3 assignments but Verlander has a bloated 5.30 ERA. That ERA is due primarily to a horrible start on 6/26 against Cleveland where Verlander lasted only 4 2/3 innings allowing 8 ER on 9 hits and 4 HR. He’ll be opposed by righthander Drew Hutchison who’ll make his first start since April 24. Hutchison usually works out of the bullpen but due to Marco Estrada’s back issues he’ll get the spot start here. Hutchison pitched well in his only other starting assignment of the year going 5 2/3 innings allowing 2 earned runs in a 6-3 Jays win over Oakland.
Toronto is in excellent form and we’ll gladly keep riding them as a very reasonably priced home favorite.
BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS -120 OVER DETROIT TIGERS
