Our baseball picks are 2-1 in the month of May and 4-3 on the season. Today our feature game is the series finale between the Detroit Tigers and Oakland A’s, where Justin Verlander looks for his fourth win of the 2012 campaign
Verlander is striking out an average of 8.42 batters per nine innings and keeping his pitch count down but just three of his five quality starts this season have translated into wins
With a win today, the Detroit Tigers (16-17) can move to .500 on the season and .500 on the road. They are only scoring 3.8 runs per game (RPG) on the road this year, 0.76 less than they score at home. Oakland scores 3.82 RPG at home but they don’t face Tigers ace Justin Verlander (3-1, 2.63 ERA) every day.
MLB odds at Pinnacle Sports are Tigers -159 and 6.5 (Over -114). Compare today’s baseball odds at Pinnacle right now and see why so many Canadian bettors choose Pinnacle as their No. 1 online sportsbook!
The Tigers have 5 overs and 10 unders in 15 road games this year (7-8) and the first two games of this series went 2-1 O/U but the Tigers past 20 games at Oakland County Coliseum have 7 overs, 12 unders and 1 push.
Oakland (18-16) is 7-11 O/U at home and 3-2 O/U during its current home stand but four runs in the opener vs. Toronto came on a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 9th. They couldn’t hit Brandon Morrow and they couldn’t do much against Max Scherzer through six but the Tigers bullpen was lit up.
The pen gave up seven more runs on Friday night’s blowout, too, but Doug Fister shut the A’s down and Verlander has a 2.68 ERA all-time against Oakland. In his last 20 road starts, Verlander is 9-9-2 O/U – nothing special. But his average earned runs allowed per start is still just 1.95 RPG.
And looking down the venues where he gave up big chunks of runs – Yankee Stadium, Fenway, a couple of divisional games against the White Sox and Indians. Take Verlander’s four worst outings away and the average slips to 1.2 RPG.
DON’T SLAM THE DOOR
Detroit wraps up this road trip with two against the Chi-Sox Monday and Tuesday and in the final game of the Tigers’ first four road series this season they are 0-4 O/U, with scores averaging 6.25 RPG.
Last year in four West Coast series against American League teams (A’s twice, Angels, Mariners), the Tigers were 1-3 O/U in the final game and the combined scores averaged 5.75 RPG.
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Oakland won yesterday’s game 3-1 on the strength of a solid outing from Brandon McCarthy. Baseball odds will always tilt towards the Tigers when Verlander is on the hill but home dogs off a win this year with a total of eight or less have resulted in 15 overs, 22 unders and 3 pushes, or 59-percent to the under. Shave the number down to 7 or less and the record is 4-11-1 O/U (73-percent UN).
This is a low number but the Tigers only have 10 home runs on the road and they are 6 for 9 on stolen bases. Jarrod Parker’s (1-0, 1.80 ERA) been solid and his only day start, he went 6.1 against the White Sox, giving up one earned run.
Pick: Take the Under 6.5 runs
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