Last Night’s AL Recap
Judge hits 56th & 57th HR in Yankees win
Aaron Judge had a massive night hitting two HRs out of Fenway park leading the Yankees to a 7-6 victory over the Red Sox. The blasts put him just 4 HRs behind Roger Maris’ 61 for the American League and the unofficial MLB record for HRs in a season. Judge has 20 games remaining in the season to accomplish the feat and is the betting favourite to do so.
Jays & Rays split double hitter
Tampa Bay won game 1 yesterday 4-2, with Toronto rallying for a 7-2 victory in the nightcap. Jeffery Springs pitched 6 shut-out innings with just 3 hits. The Rays scored a run in the first and led wire to wire in the opening game.
Alek Manoah was a late scratch as the scheduled starter in game 1 after coming done with a virus overnight. But he felt well enough later in the day to pitch 6.2 innings allowing 2 runs. Manoah needed to get just one more out to secure his 15th win but couldn’t quite make it. The Blue Jays rallied with 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th led by George Springer’s 2-run shot and didn’t look back.
Guardians win 5th straight
The Guardians have picked the right time of the year to get hot running their winning streak to 5 games with a 3-1 win over the Angels. The Guardians got a strong outing from their bullpen who went the full 9 innings to get the win. Emmanual Clase picked up his 35th save of the season in another dominant appearance.
Cleveland maintains its 3-game lead over Minnesota and 5-game lead over Chicago in the Central division standings.
Tonight’s Featured Game
Blue Jays (80-62) Stripling Vs Rays (79-62) Rasmussen, 7:07
Line: Jays -108, 7.5 Under -120
This matchup looks like a pitcher dual with both starters sporting impressive stats on the season. Drew Rasmussen (10-4), has a sparkling 2.54 ERA on the season with a 1.04 WHIP. Ross Stripling’s (7-4) ERA is slightly higher but still impressive at 3.04, but his WHIP is even better at 1.01.
These two teams are both trying to chase down the Yankees but neither can do so if they keep beating each other. They still have two more games to finish this stand in Toronto and they have another four-game series scheduled in Tampa Bay late in the season. Each team lost half a game in the standings yesterday in the Eastern standings with the split.
These two teams seem destined to face each in the wild-card round of the playoffs, with the possible exception of Seattle breaking up that matchup. But essentially these two teams are now playing for home-field advantage in that first-round series. The higher-ranked team gets home-field for all three potential games of the series.
There are no longer any tie-breaker games in MLB, so if the two teams are tied after the regular season ends, the head-to-head record becomes the first tiebreaker. Tampa Bay currently holds a 7-6 edge in the season series with 6 games still remaining between the two teams.
Tampa boasts a better pitching staff than Toronto, but the Blue Jays have a more explosive batting lineup. Who wins out between the teams is still anybody’s guess, but it will be fun to watch.
Today’s Best Bets
Orioles (Wells) [-139] @ Nationals (Corbin) $
Tyler Wells makes his second start after his stint on the IR. He managed only 2 innings in his start last week but I am looking for a stronger outing from him tonight. Wells is having a breakout season in Baltimore which should continue in Washington
Baltimore is clearly the better team and also has a favourable pitching matchup tonight. Patrick Corbin has not been good this season with a 6.30 ERA and 1.71 WHIP.
Yankees (Cortez) [-120] @ Red Sox (Bello) $
The Yankees appear to be finally breaking out of their summer-long slump. They get a crack at Red Sox’s rookie starter today, Brayan Bello who has failed to impress anyone yet in his young career.
Nestor Cortes in contrast has been impressive all season long for the Yankees. His 0.95 WHIP and 2.73 ERA are among the best in the American League. He should hold the Red Sox to a low score tonight.
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