Thursday Night

Four more for the Thursday night action. Apaprently the hit we took last night is motivating us to try to win it all back in one shot. Classic compulsive gambling behavior.

Tampa Bay Rays +108 (Matchbook), 1 unit to win 1.08.

This sets up perfectly. Shields, by far the lesser known of the Rays' two aces, goes up against Jon Lester, who is certainly talented but isn't nearly the pitcher Shields is. Throw in Lester's no-hitter and the Sox taking the first two of this much-publicized three-game set, and I don't have to tell you which way Joe Public is going at a 2 to 1 clip. The line hasn't really moved despite all those Sox plays. I wonder what that could mean.

Kansas City Royals +160 (BetUS), 1 unit to win 1.60.

Good chance to talk about line-shopping here. Now, I would never ever place a bet on the internet, nor do I condone such activity, but if I was the sort of scoundrel who engaged in such devious behavior, I would think about maintaining an account at BetUS. Although the juice is usually substantial, they seem to have lines that are out of whack more than any other site, so on occasion you can get value there. This game is an example. KC is +151 and the White Sox -155 at Matchbook, which almost always has the best lines. At BetUS it's +160 and -190. A lot more juice overall, but sometimes they're off by enough on one side of a game to make it worth your while.

Houston Astros +114 (Matchbook), 1 unit to win 1.14.

I'm tired after writing all that stuff about line-shopping. Hambone likes the Astros, I like Backe. If you want more analysis, email my partner. He has an Astros fetish.

Dodgers -129 (Matchbook), 1.29 units to win 1.

Rare favorite play of more than -120 for us here. We love the way Billingsley's been pitching and have no faith whatsoever that Dempster's success so far is 2008 is sustainable. The only reason this number is small as -129 is because of their performances in the "surface" stats so far in 2008, a very small sample size. Billingsley is the better pitcher by no small margin; just ask that PECOTA guy that my trusty partner Hambone doesn't like. Or, you know, look at their career K/BB and WHIP numbers and whatnot (gotta look at Billingsley's minor league numbers though, since he doesn't have enough data at the major-league level yet).