OVER 11 TEXAS:
Even without the Home Plate Ump info, I'm gonna take a chance at this OVER.....believe it's strong enough to make it a normal play.
8 of the last 11 meetings between these two teams have gone Over the total.
You gotta like that trend, but I guess what really stood out to me is the career numbers that these players have put up vs Garland and Burba. Check them out:
Career averages of White Sox players vs Dave Burba:
R Durham .333
T Graffanino .375
F Thomas .381
M Ordonez .333
P Konerko .333
C Lee .300
R Clayton .400
M Johnson .333
J Valentin .231
S. Alomar NO AB
K. Loften NO AB
This comes out to a .337 AVERAGE VS BURBA (60 Hits 178 AB) Pretty Amazing Numbers.
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Career averages of Rangers players vs Garland:
G Kapler .600
M Young .500
R Greer .625
A Rodriguez .500
R Palmeiro .667
B Haselman .667
C Everett .000
H Perry NO AB
H Blalock NO AB
C Murray NO AB
This comes out to a .586 AVERAGE VS GARLAND (27 Hits 46 AB)
Also, pretty amazing!
Both pitcher also have a tendency to walk more than the average pitcher. Which would of course mean more possible base runners and hopefully more runs scored.
Garland has walked 16 in 32 innings pitched this year.
Burba has walked 16 in 33 innings pitched this year.
Bullpens are also suspect for these teams. The Texas pen has been good of late, but this is a pen that still has a very high ERA of 5.08 for the year and 5.08 at home as well.
The White Sox Pen has not been very good either, especially of late. The last 10 games, the bullpen has an ERA of 5.21 and on the Road the bullpen has been really bad this year sporting an ERA of 6.86
Chances are you will see the Pens pretty early in this one, especially with the fact that Garland and Burba are only averaging around 5.2 innings per start this year.
Again, no special angles for playing this game over, just pretty much bad career number matchups for the pitchers and a couple of suspect bullpens. Should see some runs in this one. Worth a shot anyways.
Good Luck.