8/11/05 Thursday's MLB Picks (3)

Sorry for getting the plays out to you guys late the past two days. I have totally been swamped with things to take care of. In fact, I was not even able to get my picks placed at the monitoring site. It has been like that for the past month where I should actually have about 10 more units than the site says. Of course nobody will believe me but I don't really care, as long as I am winning money.

2 of my 3 picks for Thursday are contradicting earlier plays but let's roll on.

Texas Rangers +160 over New York Yankees (1.0 Units) Yesterday I said we should capitalize on the Rangers playing so bad lately. Just like the Red Sox being silly in putting Remlinger in from the pen on day 1, the Rangers were even worse to do that to Rogers. Anyways, I am backing these Rangers. The spread is just wrong and it is a psychological angle we intend to use. One of my colleagues is a psychological guru and helps us win many Game 1s. The first game of the series is always about judging a team's psyche going into the series. Are they coming into the series with momentum, losing momentum, trying to prove something, etc. Imagine you went out 2 games in a row and pitched your heart out and only allowed 2 runs in each of your games. You pitched incredibly well but you are called a loser both games because your team lost. Wouldn't you get pissed or felt cheated? This is what we see for the Yankees pitching staff. They put out two great pitching performances, but their hitting which was supposed to be a mainstay, is faltering. There is no love in the Yankees lineup ever since Sheffield said he's better than A. Rod and Jeter. They cannot score runs. Well, this is a great let down spot for a pitching staff that has given 2 great losing performances. In fact, I believe Randy Johnson, a lefty, was supposed to start today but because of back problems we have a scrub righty pitching. First, the Rangers are better against righties than lefties and second, we expect many runs in this game from both sides. Anyways, the Yankees offense stands to dissapoint again and we are left with a very tasty +160 staring us in the face. I like it. Take the Rangers but only 1 unit.

St. Louis Cardinals -1.5 RUNLINE over Chicago Cubs (1.0 Units) I am being contradictory in this game. Remember I went for the Brewers not too long ago and we saw them lose 8-4. (It was tied into the 8th). Anyways, I forgot the number of units I said to go for it, I believe only 1 but that was after I downgraded the number of units the computer spit out. I downgraded because I found out that the Cardinals are 66% winners on the road against Righties in Game 1 of a series but only 50% for the rest of the series against Righties. They have a great road record but that is because after Game 1s, they are incredible against lefties. This is spanning two years. I do not understand it to tell you the truth. Anyways, this is not our only motivation for the game. We are basically looking at a situation where we see a Cardinals team that has swept a division rival on the road and a home Cubbies team get swept at home by a division rival. We are backing the trends here and taking the runline. Historical evidence supports us.

Colorado Rockies -1.5 RUNLINE over Pittsburgh Pirates (1.0 Units) The Rockies suck but when they are at home, they deserve respect. It was not too long ago that we saw the Rockies sweep a double header series against Florida. Both games were in the morning. We expect an offensive performance out of these Rockies. Even though we have not done well backing these Rockies at home we got to like the Runline odds.

Good luck.