8/6/05 Saturday August 6th MLB Picks (2) 1-2 yesterday going -0.45 Units. Thanks to them Rockies at +190 saving our butts at the end of that game. We have lost 4 straight favorites. Anyways, we wont be able to reverse that streak because today we've got a dog.

Toronto Blue Jays +200 over New York Yankees (2.0 Units) Yes, that's right, 2.0 unit play here. I got partners calling this a 3.0 unit game. Very risky proposition on a +200 team I guess but here is my reasoning as to why this spread is so way off. Randy Johnson is by no means the same pitcher he was in his prime or even last year. Okay, so he's got a 11-6 record and the Yankees have won 9 of his last 11 starts but he has not been the impressive Randy Johnson this season. He's been playing well lately I admit but to be -230 on the road on a team that is sub-500 on the road (Yankees) going up against a team that is above-500 at home (Jays, 30-23) is totally ridiculous. There is total value on the Blue Jays just because we are going against Randy Johnson on the road. His recent streak of 9 wins in 11 games is very very misleading because most of them were home games. Randy Johnson is sporting an ERA almost 5.00 on the road this season and the Yankees are currently 3-6 this season in RJ's road starts. The Jays, on the other hand, are scoring an average of 5.3 runs per game at home versus lefties. You also have to factor in that RJ only works about 6 innings or less in exactly half of his starts. Okay and another point to make too is that there is a division rivalry factor here too and we see the Jays as 23-17 against div. rivals and below-500 against non-div rivals. The Jays should only really be +135. +200 is a joke. I should also point out that because today is a Saturday and vegas expects a larger amount of handle, this spread is way out of whack even from the normal out-of-whackness we would expect. Oh well, when we win, we'll be sitting on a whole lotta units. If we lose, oh well.

Toronto Blue Jays - New York Yankees OVER 9.5 (1.5 Units) This total is a joke and totally refurbished and manufactured by the fact that RJ is pitching today. It probably ought to be 10.5. Okay so maybe RJ pitches a great game and we lose our bet on the dog but Scott Downs is a joke. Used out of the pen to eat up innings in their losses and sporting a 5.23 ERA, Downs could so easily flop too since he's a reliever (a lousy one too). We like this over here because on any given day the Yankees could possibly score 10 by themselves and topple any over. The overs are 7-2 in RJ's last 9 outtings. This reminds me of the time when we picked Cubs overs 3 times in a week. You get pretty darn low overs when you see the likes of Prior and Zambrano on the hill but people sometimes fail to see that the Cubs themselves were scoring double-digits and toppling every over in sight that week. That reminds me, what happened to them Cubs, I thought they'd make a run.