MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at Los Angeles Angels

September 17, 2016, in MLB

After winning the first two games of their 4 game set with the Los Angeles Angels the Toronto Blue Jays were due for a clunker. Not that they can really *afford* one at this point but they were due for one and they definitely turned in a bad game on Saturday. That makes this game very important–there’s a huge psychological difference between splitting a series with a last place team and taking 3 of 4 from a last place team. Compounding the Jays problems is the fact that Boston won on Saturday though the Orioles and Yankees lost. That makes the standings heading into Sunday’s action as follows: Boston leads the AL East by 3 games over Toronto and the Baltimore Orioles. The Yankees have dropped 7 games back and are running out of time to make up that deficit.

The Jays will start Marcus Stroman and they’ve lost his last three starts as well as 10 of his 15 road starts this season. At least you know what to expect from Stroman–he’s got a 4.55 ERA overall, a 4.21 road ERA and a 4.24 L3 ERA. That’s consistency at least–maybe not the good kind of consistency but that’s something. The Angels have been horrible against right handed pitching this year (46-63 -14.5 units) so that could work in Stroman’s favor. The Jays catch a break as they’ll face Alex Meyer who will be making his fourth start. The Angels have yet to win when he starts and he’s got terrible ERA numbers. In reality, he hasn’t pitched as badly as his stats suggest because he’s not getting a lot of innings. His overall ERA is 7.20 but that’s based on a total of 8 runs in 10 innings pitched. Not great, but not really a fair assessment of what he can do. Then again, were he on a better team he’d likely not be pitching at all.

By now it’s redundant to say that the Blue Jays need this game. They need *every* game at this point of the season. This game sets up well for Toronto who has clobbered right handed pitching this season. Toronto adds to Meyer’s woes with a win here.

BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS -180 OVER LOS ANGELS ANGELS