MLB Baseball
2012-05-08 - Toronto Blue Jays at Oakland Athletics
A Sports Betting Pick by Addicted
Baseball : North America : MLB
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012, 10:05PM US
(3:05AM GMT)
PREVIEW
Oakland are right behind Toronto in overall record. The Athletics are 15-14 while the Blue Jays are 16-13. Toronto beat the LA Angels in 2 straight games without giving up a run but lost the next 2. They make the short journey to start a 2 game series with Oakland, who they beat 1-0 in their last meeting.
The Toronto Blue Jays have an ace on the mound today, Ricky Romero. Lef-handed Romero is 4-0 now with a 3.64ERA and will relish the chance of getting his team back to winning ways, as he pitched and won against Oakland with a complete game shutout performance in his last trip here.
There is added motivation. This ace has actually had his numbers spoiled a bit by his last outing, where he was hit for 5 runs in 8 innings against Texas, but was bailed out by his offence that put up 11. He's going to want to improve things today against an Oakland side he has dominated over his career. In 5 starts, Romero is 4-0 against the A's with a 1.49ERA! The A's are batting just .180 against him in that time, and as I said, his last game here was a complete game shutout.
Th Oakland Athletics counter with Brandon McCarthy, who is 2-3 with a 2.96ERA. He has only just started winning, picking up Ws in his last 2 starts after 5 games without a win. However, those wins came on the road, and you'd have to go back to last season to find the last McCarthy win here. He has now gone 4 home games without a win.
Now, while he is not trustworthy, Oakland have managed to win their last 2 games, and impressive ones too, away at Tampa Bay, who had only lost once in 14 games at that point. That means we get a big price on Toronto, because they are off 2 losses, on the road and facing an opponent that has just recorded 2 big away wins over a difficult opponent.
BETTING VERDICT
I'm going with the Blue Jays.
The Pick :
Toronto Blue Jays
