Baseball Picks & Predictions: Toronto Blue Jays at Cleveland Indians
Written April 10, 2009 by Jordan Haimowitz
The Blue Jays finished off their first season series yesterday with a 6-2 victory over the Tigers. Toronto ended up taking the first four game series of the year 3-1. As stated in a previous article I wrote about the Jays, I feel this is a team that has all the pieces for a surprise run. They have a great combination of players who possess both power and speed. Guys such as: Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Adam Lind and youngster Travis Snider, who the Jays are very excited about. Their staff is led by Roy Halladay, who I still believe is baseball’s best. The rest of the Jays’ pitchers are all young but very talented. We saw one of them the other night in David Purcey and yet another yesterday in Ricky Romero. Aaron Hill is an above average second baseball and it looks to be as if Scott Rolen has found some youth left in those old legs. In today’s game, they send out yet another young arm in Scott Richmond. While being a 28 year old rookie, he has tremendous stuff. We are still in the first week of the season, so I am not going to get over dramatic and call these “big games”, however, I will say for a team like Toronto who plays in such a difficult division, staying ahead of the curve in the win-loss column will serve them well as the season goes on. This is a game between two very similar teams. Their opponent, the Cleveland Indians have a bit more power, but the Jays have much more balance. With two young pitchers and good balanced lineups, that usually spells high scoring affair. Today’s MLB lines show that the Jays are +135 while the O/U is set at 9.5.
The Tribe are coming off a miserable opening series. A living nightmare their trip to Texas was as they were swept by the Rangers in blowout fashion. Cliff Lee, Fausto Carmona and Carl “American Idol” Pavano were all blasted in their starts as each starter gave up 6+ earned runs. The bullpen wasn’t much better as Jensen Lewis, Rafael Betancourt, Rafael Perez and Zach Jackson were all touched up for runs during the series. What an unfortunate start for a team that many picked as a dark horse to win the ALCS and possibly win the World Series. Grady Sizemore is one of baseballs best players, Jhonny Peralta and Victor Martinez look to be primed for big years, key acquisitions in closer Kerry Wood and infielder Mark DeRosa were great additions. But, with all those great players and the two nice free agent pickups, which position do we see here as missing in action?, the answer is, starting pitchers. Cliff Lee will most certainly not put up numbers like he did last year. Carmona is often injured and very wild, then when you have a third starter in Carl Pavano, you know you are in for some trouble. The Tribe will look to over power the rookie pitcher for Toronto today as they send an inexperienced pitcher to the mound themselves in, Scott Lewis. This is a pitcher that was a major prospect before last season. He was called up and won all four games he started in. He will be tested today as hell face a very hot and formidable Blue Jays lineup that can run and hit it out of the ball park. Two young pitchers, comparable batters, both bullpens are decent at best. Look below for the pick.
Haimo’s Hot Notes: The Toronto Blue Jays are 2-15 in their last 17 games at Cleveland. The Jays are also 2-6 in their last eight Friday games. The Tribe do seem to have the edge in this one as it is their home opener. With two evenly matched teams I tend to lean towards the home team a bit, in this game, ill do neither. The O/U sits at 9.5 runs. We have two rookie pitchers who are talented, but not experienced. Both teams possess speed and power with veteran hitters who will be productive. The OVER is 8-2 in Cleveland the last ten games.. Lets take OVER 9.5 runs tonight as this seems to be a great pick.
Documented MLB Record:
6-2 OVERALL
2-0 BEST BET
Jordan’s Pick: Toronto/Cleveland OVER 9.5
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