Tuesday Picks and a New Hero

Congratulations to the Against All Odds "Gambler's Hero" for the month of June. Has anyone ever singlehandedly won as much money for contrarian betters as Felix Hernandez did last night, outdueling Santana for 4 2/3 before getting injured covering home AND hitting a grand slam in his first plate appearance of the year?

On to the Tuesday picks:

San Francisco Giants +159 (Matchbook), 1 unit to win 1.59 units.

Simple value play here. Sanchez is every bit the talent that Laffey is, and the Indians lineup without their mid-decade stars is almost as impotent as the Giants starting nine. We'll take +159 on those facts any time.


Colorado Rockies +140 (Bet US), 1 unit to win 1.4 units.

We hesitate to take an anti-Greinke position, especially when the public is on the Rockies at about 60%. But the real value here appears to be in De La Rosa, whose K/BB ratio and WHIP numbers suggest his ERA should be much better than it is. The Rockies are finally getting healthy and although they will never be mistaken for the 1927 Yankees, we expect their offensive production to start to tick up accordingly.

Washington Nationals ????.

***Update- looks like the lines here have stalled at the +130 to +135 range. BetUS is +135 right now, so we'll make that our "official" play, 1 unit to win 1.35.***

We recommend playing this at anything above +125, but it's trending higher and higher, so it might be prudent to hold off and see if you can get a better bargain as the public money comes in on the Angels. Hambone first saw it at +108 in the overnight lines, and it's at +130 or so now. The reason is simple: the public perception is that the Nats are horrible, Shawn Hill is a replacement-level pitcher, the Angels are among the league's top teams, and Jon Garland is an above-average starter. Only one of those things is true. The Nats might suck, but we'll happily fade the not-as-great-as-they-seem Angels whenever it seems like a good idea (current run differential: +14, current win differential: +17), and with Garland on the mound, now is good a time as any. We'll revisit this post around 4:30 PM with the best line we can find at that time.