Rays and Orioles Pounding the Pitchers

The weekend series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles has been very entertaining, unless you’re a pitcher. These two teams have combined for 38 runs in the first two games of the series, so hopefully you have been betting the over.

On Friday night, the Rays took a 12-4 lead into the bottom of the eighth and they barely held on to win 12-10 as the O’s plated six in the eighth inning. The Rays had a pair of four run innings in the game as well. On Saturday, the Orioles started the game with four in the first inning. Then they Rays came back with three in the third and later added a six-run ninth to win the game 10-6.  These multi-run innings haven’t been because of wildness or sloppy fielding either. Both teams are crushing the baseball. In the series, the Rays have had 17 hits on Friday and 11 on Saturday including two home runs from Kelly Johnson and one from Matt Joyce. The O’s had 13 hits on Friday and 13 more on Saturday including homers from J. J. Hardy and Chris Dickerson on Friday and Adam Jones and Chris Davis on Saturday.

So after the Rays two wins in the series, they have climbed to withing one game of the Orioles in the A. L. East standings at 22-20. The O’s are 23-19 in third place 3.5 games behind the New York Yankees and 2.5 behind the Boston Red Sox in third place.

So what does this mean for Sunday? It probably means we will see a pitcher’s duel. That’s usually how it works in baseball. Just when you think you have something figured out, the exact opposite happens.

JustBet has the odds on today’s A.L. games:

Tampa Bay at Baltimore– Rays are -102 while O’s are -108. Over/under is 8.5. We’re going to go with the Orioles -108 even though unbeaten Matt Moore is pitching. We also like the under.

Toronto at New York Yankees– Toronto is +122 and the Yanks are -132. Over/Under is 8.5. Can the Jays really be this bad? R. A. Dickey goes against C. C. Sabathia today. We are going to go with the knuckleball. Blue Jays -122 and the under.

Seattle at Cleveland– Mariners are -11 and the Indians +101. Over/Under is 7.5. King Felix Hernandez goes for the M’s today. We like the Mariners -111 and the under.

Boston at Minnesota– Boston -122 while the Twins are +112. Over/Under is 9.5. John Lackey goes for the Sox today. He and his catcher did not appear to be on the same page last time out. We’re taking the Twins +112 and the over.

Kansas City at Oakland– Royals are +147 and the A’s are -162. Over/Under is 8. We like the Royals +147 and the over in this one. The Royals can flat hit the ball. They were held to one run last night. That’s a bad sign for Oakland.

Detroit at Texas- Tigers are +114 and the Rangers are -124. Over/Under is 9. We can’t see the Tigers being swept. We’ll take Detroit +114 and the over.