Bruce Marshall
Orioles at Yankees
Pick: Yankees
Yovani Gallardo continues to be marginally effective on the mound for the Orioles, but his subpar 5.08 ERA suggests vulnerabilities. Handcuffed by the Nats' Maz Scherzer on Thursday, the O's now deal with the ascending Yankees and rookie starter Luis Cessa, who was superb in his last outing on Saturday vs. the Angels, spinning six innings of three-hit, shutout ball in an eventual 5-1 win.
Bob Balfe
Bills +2.5
Week 3 is most similar to a regular season game, but still none of these teams actually have a game plan. I don’t love the Redskins running back situation to start the season and to top it off their top two running backs are out tonight. This is not a line up this evening of NFL quality at the running back position. I can’t possibly back a team in that spot. At this time last year Washington was down to their 4th or 5th tight end because of injury. This season they are all back and healthy so the last thing they need is a major injury to set them back. I like the mobility of the Buffalo Bills Quarterbacks. In the preseason mobile QB’s can always pick up big yards on vanilla defenses.
Cubs -130
The Dodgers were one out away from being no hit last night. Usually the offense doesn’t get right back on track the next night. Chicago is one of the best teams in baseball and this might just be their year. I like Montgomery and his numbers this year.
Ben Burns
Toronto -216
The Jays badly need a victory and this should be an excellent matchup for them to get one. The streaky Liriano delivered a gem last time out. Facing a Twins' lineup which tends to struggle against southpaws, I expect him to follow it up with another one here. Toronto hasn't been as good against southpaws this season as one would have expected. However, they should have success against this one. Pat Dean is 1-2 with a 5.81 ERA on the season and he's got an ugly 8.31 ERA and 2.002 WHIP his last three. Jays bounce back, in blowout fashion.
Tony Finn
Kansas City Royals at Boston Red Sox
Play: Kansas City Royals +150
The Kansas City Royals are riding a red hot 10-1 run and are set for the first of a three-game set against the Boston Red Sox on Friday night. Kansas City will square off against knuckleballer Steven Wright who comes off the disabled list to start the series opener at Fenway Park.
Boston is coming off a successful 7-4 road trip but have to deal with a team that is playing, arguably, the best of any franchise in baseball the last two weeks and have pulled within four games of the Orioles for the second wild card spot.
The reigning World Series champs send veteran right-hander Ian Kennedy (8-9, 3.58 ERA) to the historic Fenway mound to oppose knuckler Steven Wright (13-5, 3.01).
Kansas City
Kennedy stymied one of the more successful second half teams in his last start, the Minnesota Twins, nearly going the distance working eight scoreless frames of four-hit baseball and doing so without walking a batter. Kennedy faces the challenge of being a llyball pitcher in hitter-friendly Fenway Park but the right-hander is on a sick run of success. Kennedy has recorded five straight turns on the hill of at least six innings in which he has allowed one earned run or fewer. This Royals record for such feats places him in a category with former Royals lefty Larry Gura who matched the aforementioned mark 35 years ago, back in 1981.
Boston
Wright comes off the DL with a 5-0 record over his last lucky-seven starts. His last start against Kansas City came back in mid-May when he allowed three runs and five hits in a no-decision. It isn't an exaggeration to state that Wright has outpitched his peripherals and his 3.01 ERA is nothing short of squaring off against a forecast of negative regression. The Boston knuckleballer has not lost since late June but in his last four turns at Fenway he has allowed a whopping 20 runs.
It is always difficult to predict how effective a knuckleball pitcher can or will be in any one outing but historically pitchers who throw a knuckleball as their primary pitch have scuffled in their first start off a 15-day disabled stint. Wright's 4.50-plus xFIP doesn't match his current ERA and the right-hander has managed to maintain an unsustainable 25 percent hard contact rate. Wright has, unequivocally outpitched his peripherals. His 5.2% HR/FB ratio is just another of his underlying stats that will regress in the August and September heat, especially at Fenway, whereas already mentioned, has surrendered 20 runs in his last four outings.
Outlook
The money line in tonight's event has substantial value when backing Kansas City. Their lone loss in the last 11 games came against Miami ace Jose Fernandez, a game that the Royals could have and should have won had they executed with runners in scoring position, and this as +200 underdogs.
It isn't a fair assessment to use FIP or xFIP when evaluating knuckleball pitchers. There are exceptions to FIP and historically knuckleball pitchers have outperform their FIP. No matter what kind of charts, graphs and calculation you use to examine a players surface numbers to that of their underlying peripherals there will be specific players that simply don’t fit perfectly into any one model.
But offering the Royals a buck and a-half tonight with a matchup of Kennedy versus a Royals club that has an aggressive yet successful history against Knuckleball pitchers makes tonight's MLB Free Pick to Click a no-brainer.