8/31 VIP Picks
4-1 last night for a HUGE night going into the weekend. We start the full weekend of college football by going 2-0 against the spread and both games went exactly as we expected - great start with more of that to come. Baseball was a good day going 2-1 with the Brewers and Red Sox winning for us. German Marquez had 13 strikeouts against the Padres but the Rockies still found a way to lose in 13 innings, tough one. I’ll take the 4-1 and that now makes us 14-4 in our last 18…..*NBA JAM VOICE* “HE’S ON FIIIIIRRRREEEE!” Let’s keep it rolling tonight.
MLB:
Cardinals (Gomber) (-1.5) - JACKHAMMER - We will start our Friday night off with an absolute JACKHAMMER. Guess who the Cardinals get to face tonight? Homer Bailey. I know nothing has changed since the last time we bet against him but the Reds have only won 1 of the 18 games that he has started this season and he comes into this one with a 6.17 earned run average. The Cards have already beat Homer Bailey three times this season. They only covered the run line in 1 of those 3 wins so you can double down on the big moneyline if you are concerned about the run line. However, the Cardinals have covered the -1.5 run line in each of their last 10 wins. This Cardinals lineup has seen a lot of Homer Bailey and comes in with a .444 avg & .709 slg% in 135 at bats against his bitchass. Austin Gomber will start for the Cardinals and he comes in 4-0 and he already beat the Reds once this season when he pitched 6.1 innings while only allowing 2 runs. I love the Cardinals tonight and I may just drink a Budweiser for each run that they win by tonight, I’ll buy a 12 pack so I’m prepared.
Diamondbacks (Greinke) (+115) - You want to give me plus money on a team that has a career .354 avg in 79 at bats against the starting pitcher? I’ll take that! 6 of the 9 guys in the DBacks lineup are hitting over .300 against Hyun-Jin Ryu lifetime although a major part is A.J. Pollack & Paul Goldschmidt who are hitting .370 & .435 in 57 combined at bats. These are great numbers and the DBacks already beat Ryu on April 2 when they put up 3 runs in 3.2 innings against him. Zack Greinke will start for the DBacks and he has held this Dodgers lineup to a .244 avg in 156 at bats. Arizona has won both games that Greinke has pitched against the Dodgers this season. The NL West lead is 2 for the DBacks and they are looking to create some separation this weekend.
Cubs (Quintana) (+104) - Jose Quintana will start for the Cubs tonight and he has had good success against this Phillies lineup in the past. He has held them to a .189 avg in 122 at bats. Pretty damn good but the Cubs offense is even more impressive against Pivetta. They come in with a .364 avg in a small sample size of 33 at bats and they already beat him 4-3 this season. Good value as an “underdog.”
NCAAF:
2 team moneyline parlay
Syracuse / Stanford (-129) - I was thinking teaser on this one to start but if you take the moneylines it comes out to -129 which isn’t bad value at all. If you book isn’t offering a ML on Stanford then you can take the teaser. Why play the spread when you can get good value on taking these two favorites to win straight up? Let’s take a look at where each team is at coming into the matchups tonight. Syracuse QB Eric Dungey returns and he led this Cuse team to a 27-24 victory over #2 Clemson last season. He also had this team in battles with #8 Miami, #25 LSU, and Florida State who wasn’t ranked later in the year but they opened the season ranked #1. Those are some impressive games for Dungey and I trust him to come in and lead this team to victory on the road over Western Michigan tonight. The Cuse defense returns 6 starters on defense who was allowing 24 points per game last season before their season came tumbling down in the last three games of the season. It’s a new season and a fresh season for them and I think they are ready to come out an ball. Western Michigan only played one ranked opponent last year and they got beat 49-31. Western Michigan has the home field advantage in this one but don’t forget that Cuse hung tough in Death Valley, Miami, and Tallahassee last year. Those road environments are a bit tougher to play in than the one they will play in Kalamazoo tonight. I have the Orange winning this one. Now for Stanford, they actually lost to San Diego State early last year 20-17 but the run they made after that by winning 8 of their final 10 regular season games and battling five top 25 teams has me all over Stanford in this one. During that stretch, Stanford QB K.J. Costello improved his game and noticeably progressed as a QB. Stanford has Heisman Trophy runner up Bryce Love returning at running back and this San Diego State defense allowed 142 rushing yards per game on the ground last year. I see Stanford establishing the run game early and that will open up the passing game for K.J. to J.J. You will hear that a lot if you watch this game on Fox Sports 1 tonight. All 22 starters are returning from last year for Stanford and this group bonded at the end of last season in some exciting games against top ranked teams - 24-21 loss to #25 Washington State, 30-22 win to #9 Washington, 38-20 win to #8 Notre Dame, 31-28 loss to #10 USC, and 39-37 loss to #15 TCU. I expect Stanford to be very profitable for us this season and it starts tonight.