MLB - 903 Baltimore Orioles @ 904 Texas Rangers
(Starting Pitchers: J. Saunders vs Y. Darvish)
***DOUBLE DIME PLAY - SPLIT THE WAGER***
Texas clearly choked in the final part of the regular season, while Baltimore had a fairytale run and they are coming with momentum, so I'm not very surprised to see the public on the Orioles today. But that doesn't matter today, as we will be in presence of a tremendous mismatch in terms of SP. I don't know what was the idea of coach Buck Showalter, but Joe Saunders was his worst option to face the Rangers lineup today.
After a bad start on his debut with a Orioles uniform against the White Sox, Saunders has been solid with a 2.91 ERA on his last three starts. However, I can't forget that he faced in those games Boston, Toronto and Seattle, three teams with a .687, .588 and .708 OPS in September! Of course, we can't compare the hitting ability of those teams with Texas, who even with a struggling month of September, still had a .750 OPS! Saunders can't fool anybody with his pitches, he has a low K% rate and he is clearly a situational pitcher that should only used against a rotation full of LH batters. This year, LH batters hit .198/.222/.229 against Saunders this year, and even if you regress his BABIP and HR/FB rate by looking at xFIP, he still comes out at 2.65. These are obviously great numbers, but his problem is against RH batters, with .302/.349/.500 and with his FIP against right handed batters was 4.89, while his xFIP was 4.80! To make things even worse for him, the Rangers' hitters know him extremely well, as he played for the Angels: .350 BA and 1.085 OPS in 123 AB's! The Rangers' regular lineup has six RH batters and three LH batters, however I wouldn't be surprised today if Texas starts today's game with Josh Hamilton being the only LH batter on the field, with eight RH batters being just too much for Saunders to handle! With Saunders not being able to stay in the game for very long, Baltimore will have to use a lot their good bullpen, but that should just be too late for them to remain fighting for the win.
Texas will start Yu Darvish and after having a bad run with command issues, he has been better than ever lately, as after posting a 5.29 ERA, a 5.01% BB/9 and a 2.44 K/BB ratio in August, he absolutely dominated in September with a 2.21 ERA, 1.72 BB/9 and a huge 5.57 K/BB ratio. From all his stuff, Yu has an amazing slider and according to fangraphs, Baltimore was just #26 in the league against sliders in September, with them being also just #18 throughout the whole season. I expect Darvish to dominate Baltimore today and to go deep in the game. He is yet to face the Orioles, so he will also have the surprise factor helping him today. Texas will then have Mike Adams, Koji Uehara and Joe Nathan to finish the deal and even though they had some struggles lately, they will have a favorable matchup today against Baltimore.
With Texas having a clear SP edge on this contest and with their powerful offense being ready to take advantage of that today, I believe the Rangers will have a very comfortable win today and so, I'll be taking them in here. Double Dime Play! Split the wager!
Pick: 2 units on 904 Texas Rangers RL -1 (w/ Y. Darvish) @ -147 / 1.68 on 5Dimes
Pick: 2 units on 904 Texas Rangers RL -1.5 (w/ Y. Darvish) @ +100 / 2.00 on 5Dimes
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