8/5/05 Friday August 5 MLB Picks Boston Redsox -128 over Minnesota Twins (1.0 Units) The Red Sox have momentum and the Twins don't. The Red Sox are swinging the bats well and the Twins are not. The Red Sox smash right handed pitching and the Twins are just about 500 against righties. There is good reason to back the Red Sox behind consistent Bronson Arroyo.

Detroit Tigers -105 over Cleveland Indians (1.0 Units) Sabathia is good but so is Robertson, although their W/L records do not show it. Please understand here that the Tigers are 16-10 versus lefties +7.5 Units. In fact, their lineup is just built to take care of lefties. The Indians are a below 500 club versus lefties. 4-8 on the road against them. Robertson should be able to take care of the emotionally spent Indians travelling from a home game to a road game with zero days rest. What is worse was the way they lost their last game to the Yankees. Earlier I mentioned travelling from a home game to a road game with 0 days rest costs 1.3% probability of winning and in a game that is roughly being considered a pick'em, it holds a lot of water.

Colorado Rockies +190 over Arizona Diamondbacks (1.0 Units) Another unpopular play but it is worth a try. +190 means to break even we need to win this play 35% of the time. I have reason to believe that we can beat that percentage. Although we do not have a better than 50% chance of winning today, we should expect to win a little bit above 40%. You see, these Diamondbacks are just not great at home so whenever you see that kind of a home team beyond -200, that should raise a red flag. Brandon Webb is pretty good and the Rockies are just not good against righties (they are great against lefties) so the spread makes sense. This is a division rivalry game where things can even out and the Rockies have won 3 of 4 coming into the first game of this series where they are surprisingly 6-4 in game 1's versus righties on the road. It is probably a fluke but nevertheless, getting the Rockies at +190 is worth it today, they should really only be a +165.