MLB Baseball Betting: Toronto Blue Jays at Philadelphia Phillies

The Toronto Blue Jays will continue an Interleague Series against the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday coming off a big win on Tuesday. The Jays lost the opening game of the series 7-0 as ‘familiarity bred contempt’ and the Phillies lit up former New York Met R.A. Dickey. They bounced back with an 11-3 trouncing of the Phillies on Tuesday with Marcus Stroman on the hill. The Jays are starting to slowly catch the pace setters in the AL East. They’ve won 6 of their last 10 games putting them one game behind the Toronto Blue Jays and 3 games behind the Baltimore Orioles who currently lead the AL East.

The Phillies are scuffling pretty badly at this stage of the season. They were a pleasant surprise in the first month of the season but they’ve hit the skids in the month of June. They’ve lost 7 of 10 though they don’t have much risk of falling into last place in the AL East due to the presence of the hapless Atlanta Braves. They are starting to lose sight of the teams above them, however, and are 4 games back of the third place Miami Marlins, 5 games back of the New York Mets and 10 games behind the first place Washington Nationals.

Toronto will start Marco Estrada who has been their most consistent pitcher in the early going. Estrada suffered from poor run support in some of his starts which is why the Jays are just 7-5 when he takes the hill. They’ve won five straight, however, and Estrada’s maintained a decent 2.57 ERA. Jeremy Hellickson gets the start for the Phillies and like his team he’s hit a downward spiral. Philadelphia has lost his last four starts to run their record to 6-7 when he’s on the hill. His 4.34 ERA and 1.272 WHIP is nothing to write home about either.

The Jays had trouble generating runs in the first month of the season but the Phillies have had a harder time. They’re averaging only 3.3 runs per game overall (1 run per game less than Toronto) and just 2.9 at home (1.1 less than Toronto). Their pitching has also gone South of late–in their last 7 games they’ve given up an average of 5.4 runs per game. Toronto is starting to play to their ability and I’m not sure that the market has caught up to that yet.

BET TORONTO BLUE JAYS -160 OVER PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES