8/22/05 Monday's MLB Picks (2) We are looking at a strong 35-15 system that satisfies two teams on the board today. We are taking both teams for 2.0 Units.

Our system involves taking road favorites -150 or less in Game 1 of a series if they have 6+ road wins L10 and their opponent has been struggling at home L5 and L15. Our opponent must also be travelling from a road game. We see the Padres and Giants both travelling from a road game to play at home. Very tough scenario for both of those teams as we see a heated Wild Card race in which their opponents Astros and Phillies will be gunning.

Philadelphia Phillies -110 over San Francisco Giants (2.0 Units) Additional reasons to like this game is the fact that we see Lieber having given up 2 or fewer runs in 5 of his past 6 starts. It also doesn't help when we mention that these Giants are horrible against right handed pitching as we see that they are 14-27 versus righties at home. They are above 500 at home versus lefties. Of those 5 starts where Lieber has been on a roll, he lost a game 2-1 and 1-0. This is the difference between a 12-10 season that he has and a 14-8 season that he should have. Bettors have not caught on that Lieber is pitching lights out. I am surprised this game is not -135.

Houston Astros -130 over San Diego Padres (2.0 Units) Again, the Astros, like the Phillies have something to play for. They are fighting for a wild card. Although the Padres are technically in first place, they are a joke. The Astros are 17-9 against the weak West, the Phillies are 19-6 against the West. The Padres have nothing really to play for because they just have to play mediocre baseball to win their division. Actually, what they did have to play for is behind them and that was beat the Braves in a series. Since the Braves are another first place team, beating them was important to prove they deserve to be NL division leader. Since they already satisfied it, I see a let down for them today against these Astros. The Astros are also part of another system of mine that is 33-9 that involves going for road favorites of -130 or more in the first game of a series coming off a home game in which they won their previous game by 5 or more runs, which is actually one of the betting systems I use to help me predict runlines. We see Oswalt having a great game here today.

Regarding Toronto--> American League road teams this season coming off being swept is 14-24 this season -6.0 Units. I rarely take teams off from being swept. Going against them is 59-37 +7.2 Units the past two seasons. You were probably referring to a system of mine that involved going for a team off sweeping their opponent, not off of being swept. i.e. American League road teams coming off sweeping their opponent is 16-12 +5.80 units this season.

American League road teams coming off of being swept on the road and now playing on the road are 7-21 -12.5 Units this season.

I think the Yankees' Jaret Wright is being given too much love with respect to the spread and the Yankees are being overvalued here but I do not like what I see historically with respect to Toronto's play today. Then again, it is a division rivalry game, anything can happen.