Seattle (+190) @ Texas (-210); Total set at 10
The Texas Rangers have owned the Mariners in 2010 as they have gone 7-2 SU against Seattle, with both of those losses coming to studs on the mound like Cliff Lee or King Felix. The good news for Texas is that they don’t face either of those pitchers today; in fact, they get to face Ryan Rowland-Smith who is possibly the worst starter in the Mariners rotation.
Roland-Smith is 0-4 SU this year and has allowed 58 hits in only 46 innings of work. Even more staggering is the fact that in his last three starts he has an ERA of 9.28 and allowed 21 hits in only 10.2 innings of work. Playing in the hot ball park in Arlington, expect many more of Rowland-Smith’s pitches to be knocked around left, right and center.
Texas counters with Tommy Hunter on the mound who has only started one game this year but he made the most of it, going for a complete game victory, allowing only 5 hits and 1 run against a great Tampa Bay team. He did face Seattle three times last year going 1-2 SU and only once getting past five innings of work.
Looking at the lines, it is tough to lay all that chalk on Texas as continually betting -200 or above favourites will eventually make a MLB bettor go broke, so when you have lines like this is it is better to consider the total. 10 is a particularly high number for the offensively challenged Seattle Mariners, but with Rowland-Smith on the mound, Texas could clear that number themselves.
Now that the weather is beginning to heat up in Texas, balls will start to carry more and sail out of the ballpark at an alarming rate. This will help the Mariners too as they have some pop in their line up and will want to get some payback for yesterday’s 12-2 stomping they took. Runs will be aplenty in this game tonight.
The home plate umpire for this game is Larry Vanover, and like his name, he is very favourable to Overs. He has seen an average of 10.2 runs scored in the games that he calls, with only 1.9 homeruns per game as well.
That is a relatively small number for homeruns, given his high run total, so he can tighten up the strike zone and force pitchers to serve up pitches on a platter for the hitters. Vanover has watched his last four games sail Over the total, and when Seattle has 7 overs, 1 under and a push in their last nine games after scoring 2 runs or less prior, one can expect that this game will follow that trend and play Over the total.
Take Over 10 runs tonight in this game.
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