Saturday MLB

[Raji]

Atlanta Braves at Arizona Diamondbacks (+127, 9)

The Diamondbacks extended their winning streak to seven games with last night’s extra-innings win over the Braves. Arizona can do no wrong, it seems, blowing a seven-run lead before Tony Clark rescued the effort with an 11th-inning home run.

The drama overshadowed another solid performance from D-Backs relievers. Brandon Lyon and Edgar Gonzalez each pitched two shutout innings and allowed only one baserunner between them. Arizona’s bullpen has a 2.31 ERA since the All-Star break, mopping up messes consistently left by the rotation.

Southpaw Doug Davis starts this afternoon, however, and likely won’t leave much of a mess to be cleaned up. Davis has begun the second half with a trio of quality starts in as many trips to the mound.

Arizona is 7-1 at Chase Field in the second half, raising its home record for 2007 to 32-20 and +8.75 units (i.e. betting $100 on the D-backs for all of their home games this year would have resulted in $875 of profit). Arizona is also 7-1 against Atlanta over the last two seasons, netting backers +7.44 units in those eight head-to-head meetings.

Pick: Diamondbacks +127

Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians (+129, 9)

Speaking of head-to-head domination, the Indians are 6-0 against the Twins in 2007 following last night’s win at Jacobs Field. They’re now sitting at 36-18 and +9.47 units at home.

Cleveland is a home underdog tonight simply because Johan Santana is taking the hill for the Twins. The Indians, however, have beaten Minnesota in both of Santana’s starts against them and the Twinkies are showing their poorest form of the season.

“A terrible game from our side," Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire told the Associated Press after Friday’s 10-4 loss. "We didn't catch the ball or make plays and that's not good enough. It's getting embarrassing and that's what I told them.”

The Twins are just 2-8 since opening the second half with a four-game sweep over the Oakland A’s and have a five-game losing streak on the go with an average score of 8.6-2.2. Santana contributed to the losing skid in his last start, coughing up four homers in five innings to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Pick: Indians +129

Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Devil Rays (+107, 10)

Keeping up with the head-to-head domination theme, Boston is 4-0 against Tampa Bay this year and has won the quartet of games by a combined score of 33-11.

With that in mind, it’s difficult to understand how the Sox, MLB’s top team, are only -115 for tonight’s game at Tropicana against the Rays. Tampa has lost seven straight games by an average score of 10-3.

We’ll chalk the line up to public bettors’ overreliance on starters, with James Shields’ season stats looking far more dependable than Jon Lester’s solo MLB start in 2007. Shields has been knocked around more often than not in recent starts, however, and he might be showing wear in his arm after already eclipsing his career-high in innings pitched.

Further, bettors should never have the D-Rays’ disastrous bullpen far from their minds when betting their games. Tampa Bay’s relief corps has an ERA of 10.22 since the All-Star break, not a good sign against any opponent, let alone one of MLB’s top lineups. The bullpen allowed five runs in 3 2/3 innings last night after leading the game after five innings.

Pick: Red Sox -115


Raji