Play on Cleveland and Chicago WS

Record: 10-17, -3.27


Today I will play on the Cleveland Indians. They play against the Royals who recently achieved e series sweep against the Tigers.

The Royals send Zack Greinke(13-8, 2.22) who is probably this years' best pitcher. Despite his great ERA he owns a 13-8 record and it gets even worse if you look at his team starts. The Royals unbelievably lost 9 of Greinke's last 12 team starts and 13 of his last 18. Of course this comes from very poor offensive play as Greinke gets very few run support. It almost seems he has to pitch a shutout complete game to gain a win. His career numbers against the Indians are ok at 6-8, but a nice 3.62 ERA. On the home side we see Justin Masterson(4-7, 4.40) who came over from Boston. Though his numbers are average, he seems to feel comfortable at home in Cleveland where he has allowed only 10 hits (but 10 walks, too) in 15.1 innings and only one ER since his arrival.

So we have the pitching edge going to the Royals, but Masterson has good stuff and if he doesn't walk too many players he should be able to shut down this bad KC offense. The Indians lost their last three here at home against Texas, but of course the Rangers are way better than KC, especially on the hitting side. Cleveland also lost its last game 10-0 which creates a good spot here, because losing at home by double digits and scoring not a single run makes players angry. They had a day rest to get together and should now be eager to show their fans a much improved performance. Kansas won 4 in a row, but all at home. Now they have to play on the road which is a new situation. Maybe scoring one or two runs against Greinke will be enough for Cleveland, or they score against the KC bullpen who hopefully gets some innings. I will take them as dogs on a nice 2.28 or +128 with 2 units.

Second one will be on the White Sox who play on the road versus the Angels. Both teams own a nice winning stretch here.

The Sox send Gavin Floyd(11-9, 3.84) who did well of late going 6 or more innings in his last five games while putting up good numbers. He's good against LA with 1-2 and a 3.38 ERA while that win came 5 weeks ago when he held them to two runs(one earned) in 8 innings and a 6-2 Sox win. LA will go with Joe Saunders(12-7, 4.97) who actually owns the better record but his ERA of almost five is way too much. He started well into the season, but since the end of June his ERA went down from 3.66 to 4.97. His last three starts were ok, but he played Detroit, Seattle and Kansas City. His last game looked ok with only 2 ERs over 5.1 innings but he allowed 10 hits and a walks against the bad Kansas offense. His career stats vs Chicago at 2-2 and a 3.98 ERA are ok, but nothing special.

As said, both teams have nice winning stretches of late as Chicago won 6 of its last 8 and LA 6 of its last 7. The Angels did it by very good pitching, but they averaged only 3 runs over their last 9 games which probably won't be enough tonight. The Sox alternately won and lost in their last five games and while baseball is a game of streaks, I expect another win here. I will play the Sox as dogs at 2.24 or +124 with 3 units. Good Luck.

DG