After a pretty non eventful final day of the regular season, with none of the post season questions really getting answered we finally arrive at the Wild Card play offs with 2 matchups that were expected days ago. The Kansa City Royals will host the Oakland Athletics in the American League and the Pittsburgh Pirates will host the San Francisco Giants in the National League.
Wednesday 1st
American League Wild Card Game
Oakland A’s vs Kansas City Royals (10am AEST Live on ESPN)
A’s ($1.92) – John Lester
Royals ($1.92) – James Shields
Over/Under – Over 6.5 ($1.98) Under 6.5 ($1.86)
Prediction – Oakland A’s
John Lester (16-11, 2.46 ERA) will square up with James Shields (14-8. 3.21 ERA) in the AL wild card game. With both teams happy that at least their ace is on the mound. After a midseason move to the A’s Lester has been tremendous, unfortunately at that same time his offense let him down. The A’s have flat out fallen apart in the last month or so of the season and considering they were once the bookies favourites, it’s hard difficult to even fathom how they ended up in the wild card game. Kansas on the other hand have been rather consistent. Pitching wins them games and they can at times struggle to score runs.
Lester has been a positive for the slumping A’s in the last month or so pitching deep into games and giving his teammates every chance to get the win. He has faced Kansas 3 times this season getting the Win each time. Royals batters hitting .253 against him with an ERA of 2.61 over 20 innings.
Royals ace James Shields has been great all season, never really falling into a slump. Consistently pitching over 100 pitches a game he usually gets though 7 innings. In 2 starts against Oakland this season he is 1-0 with an ERA of 3.21 over 14 innings. However, A’s batters are hitting only .216 in those games and career wise the current A’s roster are hitting .215 against him. How do you argue with that.
Kansas won the season series 5-2 , though Lester did get both of those A’s wins. While Shields is surely due to continue his success against the A’s, can Kansas get on the board against Lester. The beauty of the playoffs. Hard to call but it will be a low scoring game. A’s have played some pretty ordinary baseball of late but Lester has dominated this Royals team. I feel if they get past this game they have the tools to win a series with a pretty solid all round starting pitching rotation and bullpen. Slight edge due to Lester just being so dominate against Kansas and not many runs expected here so under on the run line.
Suggested Bet
A’s to win at $1.92
Other Bets – John Lester over 4.5 K’s at $1.60 (TAB).
In his 3 starts this season against KC he has registered 20 strikeouts.
Thursday 2nd
National League Wild Card Game
San Francisco Giants vs Pittsburgh Pirates (10am AEST Live on ESPN)
Giants ($1.85) – Madison Bumgarner
Pirates ($2.00) – Edison Volquez
Over/Under – Over 6 ($2.07) Under 6.0 ($1.79)
Prediction – Pirates
Mad Bum (18-10, 2.98 ERA) hits the mound in PNC Park up against Edison Volquez (13-7, 3.04 ERA) in the National League wild card game. The Pittsburgh Pirates will be somewhat disappointed that Gerrit Cole is not available after they used him in order to try and win the division on the last day. If they lose this games questions will be asked all off-season if Cole should of been rested in order to start here. Giants have fought back after a terrible slump a month ago where they just couldn’t score runs and ended up handing the division to the Dodgers.
Madsion Bumgarner (Mad Bum) has had a stellar season and is a huge reason for the Giants being where they are today. However his worst performance of the year came against this Pirates team and at home none the less. Throwing 90 pitches in only 4 innings giving up 5 earned runs. Pirates batter are hitting .280 against Mad Bum though it is a rather small sample size. His record against Pittsburgh in the last 3 years is 1-2 in 3 starts with an ERA of 1.71. A great record on the road also.
Pittsburgh have given Volquez the start but make no bones about it, If he walks batters early he will be yanked for Vance Worley who has been in stellar form. Volquez however is a machine when at home and has been in some good form himself. He has not registered a loss since late July (13 starts). Key will be if he walks the Giants batters as he has at times lost his control. Throwing his curveball on 2 strike counts which he regularly does could be a negative factor though. Giants love the curveball and Posey for example has only struck out 5 times to a curveball all season in 69 total strikeouts.
Two former NL MVP’s on display here in McCutchen and Buster Posey. However I’m waiting to see if the Pirates main catcher Russel Martin is fit as he is the key. This is the same guy that hit 2 home runs in last season’s wild card game against the Reds. He is a big time player who is experienced in these games. The Giants have a few big game players themselves in Sandoval and Posey so I can see it being close. If it was a 5 game series I would side with the Giants. However in a one off game at PNC park with the blacked out crowd behind them, I can’t shy from the Pirates. Pittsburgh’s home record is 51-30, tied for 2nd best in the league. Pittsburgh won the season series 4-2 and should of taken 3 of the 3 home games part from a brain explosion. Pirates have a solid bullpen in Watson, Melancon and the Kiwi Holdzkem. If Volquez gets through 7 innings the Pirates win this. I’m confident he does and sets up a meeting with the Nationals. 12-6 in last 18 home games for Pittsburgh. Giants 7-11 in their last 18 road games. The price at evens is what you want. The Run total is set lower than I thought so that’s not a bad option to play overs if your prefer that sort of thing.
Suggested Bet
Pirates at $2.00
Series Betting Markets
Detroit Tigers $1.69 vs Baltimore Orioles $2.17
Shocked that Detroit are so short here, how could you take them at that price. Yes they won the season series 5-1 but that last game between them was in May when the tigers were 24-12. This is a different Tigers team that has serious bullpen issues now. An Orioles team that can score runs and has a solid bullpen and in red hot form. I just love this value on the Orioles at $2.17.
St Louis Cardinals $2.58 vs Los Angeles Dodgers $1.50
Market seems about right here, won’t be touching the price on the Dodgers though. Remember Kershaw is likely going to pitch twice in this series and last season he went 0-2 against the Cardinals in the NLCS. Keep that in mind. A small play on the Cardinals is worth it if I had to make a play as they have the post season experience and some quality pitching. I think they match up better with the Dodgers than any other NL team and they did beat them in 6 games last year.
Suggested Bet
Orioles at $2.17
All Prices Quoted via Sportsbet at time of writing unless stated otherwise.
Hopefully your thoughts on the games match up with mine. Feel free to share your opinions on any games at @MLB_TheProfits on Twitter. Happy Punting.
Please Note:
All of the above are the opinions of the author and are not recommendations or advice. The author may not be taking every bet listed above. Bet at your own risk.
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