St. Louis Cardinals -127 vs Cincinnati Reds
Arizona Diamondbacks/San Francisco Giants Under 7 -125
Los Angeles Angels -177 vs Texas Rangers
1 unit bet wins 4.04
lost yesterday's parlay by 1 again. So still doing well betting them SU... But I am on a long parlay losing streak!
I remember when I was excited to learn my book offered "MultiChance Parlays" - where they pay off the parlay, even if you miss one leg of it. Some books call these "almost parlays" or "consolation parlays" or "close call parlays"...These are parlay bets that "almost" win, that is, instead of hitting 5 out of 5 teams, or 4 out of 4 teams, the sportsbook will award a winning bet to 4 out of 5 correct teams, or 3 our 4 correct teams, respectively.....but it turns out these are only available on football and basketball wagers against the spread and totals. Money lines and proposition bets are excluded - Damn!
I will start trying MultiChance parlays this weekend in football, tho with the lines so sharp and solid nowadays in NFL and top 20 NCAA FB, teasers are really the way to go...
May the most you wish for be the least you get. :00hour :toast: :spotting: :clap: :slomo
2014 parlay record: 12-70, +17.71 units.....on various mixed sports....(1 unit bet each parlay)
Posted here was the first winning parlay of the year, and it was my biggest. Not long after that I didn't post for a few months (the unpredictable ends of NBA + NHL seasons, plus start of MLB, is the worst time of year for parlays), then had this small winner (only paid 1.58 as one game ppd and one total pushed) and Sunday, July 6 three-teamer, and July 14 four-teamer, July 25 4-teamer, with a push, that became a 3 teamer...then this 4 teamer July 29th...and 2-3 on bunch of smaller parlays I tried July 30th...a 3 teamer Aug 8th, and a 2 teamer Aug 9th...little 2 teamer Aug 12th...this nice 3 teamer Aug 21...
"Don't worry, I can handle them, Mr. Smith! It'll be fun! Little boys just love me!" - last known words of Nanny
pilfered cut and pasted from the internets:
I?m not too down on Chris Capuano against the Rays. I only mention him because Yankees Stadium can give anybody a bad game.
The Pirates should get to Jerome Williams. Despite a 2.84 ERA with the Phillies, his strikeout and walk rates are worse than with his other two teams.
Maybe these exciting young Cubbies will get to Drew Hutchison. Hutch was a nice ?scouting? find by Carson Cistulli, but he doesn?t quite have the stuff to maintain useful rate stats.
The Rockies and Mets do not have good offenses, especially when not at Coors Field. Even so, a matchup between Tyler Matzek and Rafael Montero seems ripe for run scoring.
--
Arizona vs. San Francisco
Play: Under 7
Arizona has struggled at the plate of late averaging just 2.6 runs the past week. They have played under in 10 of 12 games as a road dog from +150 to +175. Arizona has Collmenter pitching and he has been solid of late with a 0.83 era in his last 3 starts. In his last 2 starts vs the Giants he has allowed 2 runs in 10 innings. Vogelsong for San Francisco has pitched under in 10 of 14 starts and has a solid 2.97 home era.
Ryan Vogelsong had a terrible outing his last start, but it also came at Coors Field. He'd allowed three earned runs or fewer in 12 consecutive starts leading up to that. He also has a 2.97 ERA and 1.04 WHIP at home, though his record is 3-6. I'd say that won-loss record is due to improve.
The Giants are 10-3 their last 13 games as they try and solidify their spot as at least a Wild Card team in the National League. Right now, they have a 5.5 game cushion. But by taking care of business against one of the division also-rans, they can maybe even catch the first place Dodgers, who they will welcome in this weekend.
San Francisco is also 14-5 as a home favorite in the -150 to -175 range this season.
Arizona vs San Francisco
Pick: Under 7
We hit the ?under? in this team matchup between the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants last night and are coming back with it again. Ryan Vogelsong does not have eye-popping overall numbers for the Giants but he knows how to pitch at spacious AT&T Park posting a 3.17 ERA and 1.05 WHIP here with 77 strikeouts vs. just 16 walks in 14 home starts covering 88 innings. The last time he faced Arizona, he allowed two runs on six hits in 6.1 innings of an unlucky 2-0 loss. Josh Collmenter is in great form for Arizona allowing a grand total of two runs on 11 hits in 21.2 innings his last three starts with 16 strikeouts and a measly two walks. He held the Giants to one run is five innings his only start against them this year. The ?under? is 7-2 in the Giants? last nine home games.
----
Los Angeles Angels vs. Texas Rangers
Play: Los Angeles Angels -153
The Angels have won six in a row, and now enjoy an eight game lead over Oakland in the AL West. The offense is red hot right now, as they have tallied 35 runs in their last three games. With a reasonable price to back baseball's best team on the road against a very poor Texas team tonight, it's tempting to take the visitors.
Here are my keys to the game:
1. Pitching - The Halos hand the ball to Matt Shoemaker, who is undefeated in six straight starts. He allowed three runs on six hits and three walks over just four innings in a no-decision at Minnesota his last time out, but he had registered five straight wins prior to that. He also owns a record of 6-1 in 10 starts on the road, although his ERA of 4.88 in those 10 games isn't really that impressive. The Rangers counter with Nick Tepesch, who has really struggled at home, going 2-4 with a 4.03 ERA in Texas this season. He was lit up for six runs over 6 1/3 innings in his last home start.
2. Angels Bats - Mike Trout was 2-for-5 with a triple last night, and he's 6-for-13 with a home run and three RBIs in his last three games. Albert Pujols is 9-for-24 with a pair of home runs and seven RBIs in his last five games.
3. X-Factor - No team in the American League has won more games on the road than the Angels (42).
-----------------
Houston +228 over SEATTLE
Indeed this one is risky but the return is worth the risk and there are some valid reasons to go against Hisashi Iwakuma here. First, Iwakuma has a 7.23 ERA over his past three starts. One of those starts was in Washington where Iwakuma surrendered three jacks. He also faced Boston and Texas over that stretch, two last place teams and he didn?t fare well in either. These Japanese pitchers are not used to a 162 game schedule in six months. In Japan, they play 144 games over an eight month season so it is not uncommon to see many of them struggle or suffer from fatigue as the season winds down. Furthermore, Iwakuma has struggled against Houston this season, giving up 9 earned runs in 19.7 IP and that?s when he was in fine form.
We?ve profiled Nicholas Tropeano in our major-league call-up section and will copy that post here.Houston was impressed enough with Nick Tropeano?s 2014 campaign to give him a spot on the 40-man roster as well as his initial call-up to join their pitching staff for September. Tropeano, 24, was a 5th round pick in 2011 out of NYU-Stony Brook. He moved up one level per season before being called up. His most recent stop included an ERA of 3.03 and strikeout rate of 8.7 K?s/9 in the Pacific Coast League and those numbers certainly impressed the Astros. Tropeano throws three pitches: a 90-95 mph fastball, low 80s mph slider, and 82-85 mph change-up. The change-up is a plus offering and his best pitch. It works well off his fastball because he does a nice job maintaining arm speed and gets good sink and fade on the pitch. He?s shown durability and commands his pitches well. One area of weakness has been the propensity to give up the long ball?Tropeano has given up more than 10 home runs each of the past three seasons. He?s shown some increase in velocity, but he won?t ever reach an elite velocity level. Over 469 career innings, Tropeano has a 3.26 ERA to go along with 9.2 K?s/9 and a .241 oppBA. What really sticks out to us, however, is his numbers at Triple-A this season pitching for Oklahoma City of the Pacific Coast League. The PCL is rough on pitchers, very rough in fact but Tropeano went 9-5 with a 3.03 ERA with an outstanding BB/K split of 33/120 over 124.2 frames. That alone makes him worthy of a play at this price.
---
This will be an intriguing start tonight for Cardinals' pitcher John Lackey. He was pretty bad at Milwaukee on Friday (6 IP, six ER) and is looking to bounce back in the matchup against the Reds. As Viva El Birdos writer Craig Edwards pointed out, Lackey has experienced a drop in velocity since coming over in the July 31 trade with Boston.
Let's take a look at miles per hour "Before and After" the trade in data culled from Brooks Baseball:
Four-seam fastball: 93.2 mph before ... 91.7 mph after.
Sinker: 92.6 mph before ... 91.6 mph after.
Slider: 85.06 mph before ... 83.7 mph after.
I don't know if the velocity drop is something to worry about, or just a mere fluctuation that can occur over a long, physically draining season.
I like Lackey. He's a bulldog. He's won two World Series-wrapping games in his career, for the 2002 Angels and 2013 Red Sox. He's a gamer. That experience -- and innings -- is why Mozeliak coveted Lackey.
And it's not as if Lackey has been terrible here. Perspective, please. Lackey has five quality starts in his first seven outings as a Cardinal. In the five quality starts Lackey has a 2.43 ERA, an outstanding 4.17 strikeout-walk ratio, and the Cardinals are 5-0 in those contests.
Arizona Diamondbacks/San Francisco Giants Under 7 -125
Los Angeles Angels -177 vs Texas Rangers
1 unit bet wins 4.04
lost yesterday's parlay by 1 again. So still doing well betting them SU... But I am on a long parlay losing streak!
I remember when I was excited to learn my book offered "MultiChance Parlays" - where they pay off the parlay, even if you miss one leg of it. Some books call these "almost parlays" or "consolation parlays" or "close call parlays"...These are parlay bets that "almost" win, that is, instead of hitting 5 out of 5 teams, or 4 out of 4 teams, the sportsbook will award a winning bet to 4 out of 5 correct teams, or 3 our 4 correct teams, respectively.....but it turns out these are only available on football and basketball wagers against the spread and totals. Money lines and proposition bets are excluded - Damn!
I will start trying MultiChance parlays this weekend in football, tho with the lines so sharp and solid nowadays in NFL and top 20 NCAA FB, teasers are really the way to go...
May the most you wish for be the least you get. :00hour :toast: :spotting: :clap: :slomo
2014 parlay record: 12-70, +17.71 units.....on various mixed sports....(1 unit bet each parlay)
Posted here was the first winning parlay of the year, and it was my biggest. Not long after that I didn't post for a few months (the unpredictable ends of NBA + NHL seasons, plus start of MLB, is the worst time of year for parlays), then had this small winner (only paid 1.58 as one game ppd and one total pushed) and Sunday, July 6 three-teamer, and July 14 four-teamer, July 25 4-teamer, with a push, that became a 3 teamer...then this 4 teamer July 29th...and 2-3 on bunch of smaller parlays I tried July 30th...a 3 teamer Aug 8th, and a 2 teamer Aug 9th...little 2 teamer Aug 12th...this nice 3 teamer Aug 21...
"Don't worry, I can handle them, Mr. Smith! It'll be fun! Little boys just love me!" - last known words of Nanny
pilfered cut and pasted from the internets:
I?m not too down on Chris Capuano against the Rays. I only mention him because Yankees Stadium can give anybody a bad game.
The Pirates should get to Jerome Williams. Despite a 2.84 ERA with the Phillies, his strikeout and walk rates are worse than with his other two teams.
Maybe these exciting young Cubbies will get to Drew Hutchison. Hutch was a nice ?scouting? find by Carson Cistulli, but he doesn?t quite have the stuff to maintain useful rate stats.
The Rockies and Mets do not have good offenses, especially when not at Coors Field. Even so, a matchup between Tyler Matzek and Rafael Montero seems ripe for run scoring.
--
Arizona vs. San Francisco
Play: Under 7
Arizona has struggled at the plate of late averaging just 2.6 runs the past week. They have played under in 10 of 12 games as a road dog from +150 to +175. Arizona has Collmenter pitching and he has been solid of late with a 0.83 era in his last 3 starts. In his last 2 starts vs the Giants he has allowed 2 runs in 10 innings. Vogelsong for San Francisco has pitched under in 10 of 14 starts and has a solid 2.97 home era.
Ryan Vogelsong had a terrible outing his last start, but it also came at Coors Field. He'd allowed three earned runs or fewer in 12 consecutive starts leading up to that. He also has a 2.97 ERA and 1.04 WHIP at home, though his record is 3-6. I'd say that won-loss record is due to improve.
The Giants are 10-3 their last 13 games as they try and solidify their spot as at least a Wild Card team in the National League. Right now, they have a 5.5 game cushion. But by taking care of business against one of the division also-rans, they can maybe even catch the first place Dodgers, who they will welcome in this weekend.
San Francisco is also 14-5 as a home favorite in the -150 to -175 range this season.
Arizona vs San Francisco
Pick: Under 7
We hit the ?under? in this team matchup between the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants last night and are coming back with it again. Ryan Vogelsong does not have eye-popping overall numbers for the Giants but he knows how to pitch at spacious AT&T Park posting a 3.17 ERA and 1.05 WHIP here with 77 strikeouts vs. just 16 walks in 14 home starts covering 88 innings. The last time he faced Arizona, he allowed two runs on six hits in 6.1 innings of an unlucky 2-0 loss. Josh Collmenter is in great form for Arizona allowing a grand total of two runs on 11 hits in 21.2 innings his last three starts with 16 strikeouts and a measly two walks. He held the Giants to one run is five innings his only start against them this year. The ?under? is 7-2 in the Giants? last nine home games.
----
Los Angeles Angels vs. Texas Rangers
Play: Los Angeles Angels -153
The Angels have won six in a row, and now enjoy an eight game lead over Oakland in the AL West. The offense is red hot right now, as they have tallied 35 runs in their last three games. With a reasonable price to back baseball's best team on the road against a very poor Texas team tonight, it's tempting to take the visitors.
Here are my keys to the game:
1. Pitching - The Halos hand the ball to Matt Shoemaker, who is undefeated in six straight starts. He allowed three runs on six hits and three walks over just four innings in a no-decision at Minnesota his last time out, but he had registered five straight wins prior to that. He also owns a record of 6-1 in 10 starts on the road, although his ERA of 4.88 in those 10 games isn't really that impressive. The Rangers counter with Nick Tepesch, who has really struggled at home, going 2-4 with a 4.03 ERA in Texas this season. He was lit up for six runs over 6 1/3 innings in his last home start.
2. Angels Bats - Mike Trout was 2-for-5 with a triple last night, and he's 6-for-13 with a home run and three RBIs in his last three games. Albert Pujols is 9-for-24 with a pair of home runs and seven RBIs in his last five games.
3. X-Factor - No team in the American League has won more games on the road than the Angels (42).
-----------------
Houston +228 over SEATTLE
Indeed this one is risky but the return is worth the risk and there are some valid reasons to go against Hisashi Iwakuma here. First, Iwakuma has a 7.23 ERA over his past three starts. One of those starts was in Washington where Iwakuma surrendered three jacks. He also faced Boston and Texas over that stretch, two last place teams and he didn?t fare well in either. These Japanese pitchers are not used to a 162 game schedule in six months. In Japan, they play 144 games over an eight month season so it is not uncommon to see many of them struggle or suffer from fatigue as the season winds down. Furthermore, Iwakuma has struggled against Houston this season, giving up 9 earned runs in 19.7 IP and that?s when he was in fine form.
We?ve profiled Nicholas Tropeano in our major-league call-up section and will copy that post here.Houston was impressed enough with Nick Tropeano?s 2014 campaign to give him a spot on the 40-man roster as well as his initial call-up to join their pitching staff for September. Tropeano, 24, was a 5th round pick in 2011 out of NYU-Stony Brook. He moved up one level per season before being called up. His most recent stop included an ERA of 3.03 and strikeout rate of 8.7 K?s/9 in the Pacific Coast League and those numbers certainly impressed the Astros. Tropeano throws three pitches: a 90-95 mph fastball, low 80s mph slider, and 82-85 mph change-up. The change-up is a plus offering and his best pitch. It works well off his fastball because he does a nice job maintaining arm speed and gets good sink and fade on the pitch. He?s shown durability and commands his pitches well. One area of weakness has been the propensity to give up the long ball?Tropeano has given up more than 10 home runs each of the past three seasons. He?s shown some increase in velocity, but he won?t ever reach an elite velocity level. Over 469 career innings, Tropeano has a 3.26 ERA to go along with 9.2 K?s/9 and a .241 oppBA. What really sticks out to us, however, is his numbers at Triple-A this season pitching for Oklahoma City of the Pacific Coast League. The PCL is rough on pitchers, very rough in fact but Tropeano went 9-5 with a 3.03 ERA with an outstanding BB/K split of 33/120 over 124.2 frames. That alone makes him worthy of a play at this price.
---
This will be an intriguing start tonight for Cardinals' pitcher John Lackey. He was pretty bad at Milwaukee on Friday (6 IP, six ER) and is looking to bounce back in the matchup against the Reds. As Viva El Birdos writer Craig Edwards pointed out, Lackey has experienced a drop in velocity since coming over in the July 31 trade with Boston.
Let's take a look at miles per hour "Before and After" the trade in data culled from Brooks Baseball:
Four-seam fastball: 93.2 mph before ... 91.7 mph after.
Sinker: 92.6 mph before ... 91.6 mph after.
Slider: 85.06 mph before ... 83.7 mph after.
I don't know if the velocity drop is something to worry about, or just a mere fluctuation that can occur over a long, physically draining season.
I like Lackey. He's a bulldog. He's won two World Series-wrapping games in his career, for the 2002 Angels and 2013 Red Sox. He's a gamer. That experience -- and innings -- is why Mozeliak coveted Lackey.
And it's not as if Lackey has been terrible here. Perspective, please. Lackey has five quality starts in his first seven outings as a Cardinal. In the five quality starts Lackey has a 2.43 ERA, an outstanding 4.17 strikeout-walk ratio, and the Cardinals are 5-0 in those contests.
