A Good Day to Call In Sick

If you're a sports fan, you have to think about calling in sick today. The U.S. Open gets underway, Euro 2008 continues with a quality Germany-Croatia matchup at noon (followed by a stinker at 2:30), and we've got the usual helping of Thursday afternoon baseball, including a great Haren vs. Santana matchup in Queens. Tivo's not an option either- Game 4 of the NBA Finals is tonight. I need to get a TV in my office. There's a cable wire just dangling from the ceiling, taunting me.

We'll start with the baseball. Winning day yesterday, thanks to Jurrjens apparently twisting his ankle on the clubhouse steps(?) and negating our Braves wager. Thanks, Jair. Three more underdogs today, all lines from Matchbook:

San Francisco Giants +111, 1 unit to win 1.11 units.

This matchup looks boring. It is boring. Sanchez and Reynolds starting for 2 NL bottom-feeders. However, a little digging reveals that Sanchez is by far the superior talent. The Rockies are playing the role of favorite because they have won 6 of 7 and are at home, but many of their recent wins have come in relatively low-scoring games. The Giants offense, meanwhile, seems to have finally started hitting like real live major leaguers, and has put up a lot of crooked numbers in the last week or two.

Minnesota Twins +173, 1 unit to win 1.73 units.

I'm not gonna try to convince you that Livan is better than Aaron Laffey, or that the Twins have more offensive firepower than the Indians. But you know what you're getting with Livan, and the Indians offense is banged up. +173 is simply a good price. Interesting note- the Indians are the last team in the majors that Livan has not faced. Also, I can't remember if I've done my "Travis Hafner was on Steroids" routine on the blog, but well, he was. Giant head and jaw, premature balding, huge power numbers that dropped off the cliff in the last two years when MLB started testing. "Curious" would be putting it mildly.

Baltimore Orioles +152, 1 unit to win 1.52 units.

I was a Guthrie skeptic, and still am, but if he's good enough for O's hater Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus to project as a #3 starter on a quality team down the road, that's good enough for me. At least in a matchup with Jon Lester, who probably projects similarly. Plus Lester is a lefty and Guthrie a righty- lefties have always struggled at Fenway, and Lester's great numbers there are almost certainly a product of small sample size. Obviously the Boston bats shift things in the Sox favor, but it's not a +152 shift. So we'll take the big number here.