CHICAGO WHITE SOX @ CLEVELAND INDIANS
Baseball : North America : MLB
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011, 7:05PM US
(12:05AM GMT)

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PREVIEW

Cleveland and Chicago played a double header here yesterday, with the Indians winning the first before Chicago won the late game. It leaves Cleveland 1.5 games ahead of their visitors in the race for 2nd in the AL Central.

The Chicago White Sox go with Mark Buehrle tonight, who is 11-9 with a 3.74ERA. However, he is bang slap in the middle of a very poor run at the moment. His last 3 starts have seen him give up 22 runs, giving him an 11.74ERA in that horrible trio of starts.

The poor guy has given up 33 hits in that time and I'm not going to put any trust in him tonight, not after he got hit in the bicep by a line-drive in his last start, where he gave up 7 runs! Buehrle has not performed well against Cleveland this year. In 3 starts he has allowed them way too many runs, as his 7.11ERA makes clear.

The Cleveland Indians will send Ubaldo Jimenez to the hill tonight, with the ex-Colorado ace owning a 10-11 mark with a 4.49EA. Jimenez is on a cracking run at the moment, both home and away, as he has a 2.78ERA through his last 5 starts. He has a 3-1 record in those games

Jimenez recently faced the Chicago White Sox, just 3 games ago, when he allowed only 2 runs in 6 innings away from home. At home, he has been perfect in all his starts so far and is therefore much more reliable than the kind of form Buehrle brings. Jimenez has a 4.08ERA over his 3 career meetings against Chicago and all those games have come this season. He has gone 1-0 through those games.

TEAM STATS

Chicago White Sox
Overall 75-79, Streak W1

Cleveland Indians
Overall 76-77, Streak L1

BETTING VERDICT

I have to go with the Indians here. There are 2 pitchers in completely different form and the Indians have the right man. Take Cleveland.

The Pick :

Cleveland Indians

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take the Cleveland Indians to win @ 1.67 (Pinnacle)