In today’s MLB betting guide, the Toronto Blue Jays look to blow out the Baltimore Orioles once again, while the St. Louis Cardinals are looking to extend the Pittsburgh Pirates’ losing streak once again.
Toronto Blue Jays (-225) vs Baltimore Orioles (+180)
The Blue Jays ran through the Orioles in yesterday’s matchup 11-1 as they scored runs in six of the eight innings and tagged on seven in the fifth inning. The bats were backed by excellent pitching from their ace Alek Manoah, but today the team will hope to get a similar performance from Yusei Kikuchi who struggled in his last outing. He doesn’t go very deep in games, so the Blue Jays should expect four to five innings while likely having to add some runs of their own. He struggles with control, but the Blue Jays’ defense is solid behind him.
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The starter for the Orioles is Jordan Lyles who has performed worse than Kikuchi this season and has given up 81 hits in 67 innings. That doesn’t bode well facing the Blue jays whose bats have been extremely hot. The Orioles have a poor away record of 11-21, while the Blue Jays are 19-10 at home and have won two in a row. The Blue Jays should be your choice in this game as you should also consider the run line (-1.5, -115) and over (O9, -115).
St. Louis Cardinals (-165) vs Pittsburgh Pirates (+140) – Game 1
The Cardinals came back in the first game of the series yesterday in a big way. After being down 5-0, they exploded in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings to take the game 7-5. You can expect this game to be just as high scoring, if not higher. Cardinals’ starter Matthew Liberatore is only 13 innings into his big league career and has struggled, giving up four home runs, 16 hits, and eight walks. His FIP (fielding independent pitching) is much higher than his ERA (earned run average) which shows he is getting help defensively. The Pirates’ batters should be able to score some runs but they struggle with putting runs up on the board, so it still won’t be the easiest of tasks.
The Pirates’ starter is JT Brubaker who is the better of the two pitchers this season. He has the ability to strike out batters but does struggle with walking batters as well. The Cardinals have the advantage in every category that isn’t pitching, but Brubaker has also given up eight earned runs over the last 11 innings. The Pirates have lost seven consecutive games, are just 9-20 on the road, and now have 11 fewer wins on the season than the Cardinals. Take the Cardinals and over (O9.5, -110) in this one for good value considering the Pirates are one of the league’s worst.
Odds via Yahoo and BetMGM.
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