Seattle Mariners at Minnesota Twins: Baseball Picks & Predictions

Written April 8, 2009 by Jordan Haimowitz

mariners-twins-preview-picks-040809 The Mariners enter this season without their all-star outfielder, Ichiro Suzuki. About one week before the season started Seattle found out Ichiro was going to start the year on the DL with a bleeding ulcer. So a team that already was predicted to be one of the leagues worst now loses their star player. As a result, they start the season 1-1, winning the first game on the road at Minnesota. They then take a 5-3 lead into the 9th inning last night as new closer Brandon Morrow was yanked after walking three batters to be replaced by Miguel Batista who gave up back to back hits as the Twins won 6-5. This team’s feature player is Adrian Beltre. A guy who is a career .270 hitter. A positive sign for the M’s this year should be their pitching staff. With Felix Hernandez as their ace, Erik Bedard now healthy, Jarrod Washburn looking at a bounce back year and youngster Ryan Rowland-Smith has a very live arm. Seattle will put Carlos Silva on the mound tonight which is a recipe for disaster. This is a guy who last year posted a 4-15 record with a disgusting 6.46 ERA. The Mariners do not have enough balance in their lineup for them to be competitive when they put a bad pitcher on the mound. The games that are high scoring this year more often then not will be in the opposing teams favor. Carlos Silva is a human batting practice machine. He faces a team with a solid speed and power balance. Total miss-match. Today’s baseball lines have the Twins at -156 against the Mariners with the run line for the game set at Minnesota -1.5 +120 with a total of 8.5 points.

The Minnesota Twins have a lot of promise to live up to this year. This is a highly touted bunch with one of the most balanced lineups in all of baseball. Denard Span, the Twins lead off man has an excellent OBP (on base percentage) with terrific speed. Carlos Gomez, the young outfielder who was the center piece in the Santana deal last year has tremendous speed showing it last night when he flew around the bags to leg out a triple. Joe Mauer, who is hurt right now and expected back late-may, is the best hitting catcher in baseball. He has a terrific BA and could compete for batting titles every year. Then we go to the Twins slugger, a previous MVP winner, Justin Morneau. While his home run total was down last year at 23, he added 129 RBIs. This game is all set for Morneau to explode tonight as last year he hit .343 against Seattle. If Minnesota has the lead late, they don’t need to have knots in their stomach as perennial all-star closer Joe Nathan is their to seal the deal. On the mound tonight for the Twins was arguably their best pitcher last year in Kevin Slowey won twelve games last year with a 3.99 ERA. While that is certainly not fantastic, it beats the heck out of Silva’s numbers. Slowey’s numbers at home were 7-4 with a 3.38 ERA. So clearly he is a better pitcher at home as opposed to away. ALL signs point towards Minnesota, check the hot notes below for picks.

Haimo’s Hot Notes: A classic miss-match. The starting pitchers leans towards the Twins favor along with the lineup and every single situational stat you will find. The Mariners are 3-12 in their last 15 games as an underdog. How about this alarming trend, the Minnesota Twins are 38-15 in their last 53 home games. The OVER is 24-8-1 in their last 33 meetings. Tonight, we won’t run from the trends, we will follow them. The speed and power in Minnesota’s lineup will rattle Silva and the Mariners staff from the very first pitch. I do expect the Mariners to put up 3-4 runs, but that will not be nearly enough. Lets add to our 3-0 night yesterday with these picks:

Jordans Picks: Twins -1.5 +135 & OVER 8.5

Documented MLB Record

3-0 OVERALL

1-0 BEST BET

Get more great baseball picks from our top handicappers. Don’t miss out on another great season of MLB betting at Betfirms!

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

No comments yet, but your thoughts are welcome!

Comments

Got something to say?