{"id":15152,"date":"2011-04-27T14:14:03","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T19:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15152"},"modified":"2011-04-27T14:14:03","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T19:14:03","slug":"al-betting-tampa-bay-rays-at-minnesota-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/al-betting-tampa-bay-rays-at-minnesota-twins-15152\/","title":{"rendered":"AL Betting: Tampa Bay Rays At Minnesota Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Minnesota Twins Double Header (Second Leg)<\/strong>
\nApril 27, 2011 at 8:10 PM EST<\/strong><\/p>\n

Game 2 of double header:<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 MIN -133, TAM +123<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 MIN -131, TAM +121<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 7.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 7.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 TAM- Wade Davis, MIN- Francisco Liriano<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Wade Davis will take the mound tonight for Tampa Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, after a terrible start from the pitching staff, things have begun to come together for the Tampa Bay Rays.\u00a0 Wade Davis last shut out the Twins and Tampa Bay moved over .500 for the first time this season on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The Tampa Bay Rays took 3 of 4 games from Minnesota earlier this month and held the Twins to 12 hits and a .234 average for the series.\u00a0 In all four games, the Tampa Bay starter lasted at least 7 innings.\u00a0 Davis allowed only one run and 4 hits in the second game.\u00a0 Davis’ PECOTA projections call for an 11-9 season with a 4.12 ERA.<\/p>\n

If the early season is any indication, Davis’ ERA could be in the mid 3.00s by the time the season ends, being realistic and reserved.\u00a0 It is of course entirely possible he shifts in either direction quite drastically.\u00a0 He has never won more than 12 games in a season and in seasons in which he pitched at least 100 innings, his ERA has never been lower than 3.84.\u00a0 Davis came into the majors highly regarded though, and allowed the Rays to get rid of Scott Kazmir.\u00a0 The problem has been for Davis that he has relied entirely too much on his fastball, which tops out at between 91 and 94 miles an hour.\u00a0 His fly ball percentage (33.8%) was the fourth highest in the American League.\u00a0 If he’s to fulfill any of his vast promise, he is going to have to learn to vary his pitches more.<\/p>\n

The Twins are starting to show signs of life themselves, as well.\u00a0 After opening the season 4-10, they have won 5 of their last 7 games and they beat the Indians 4-3 on Sunday in a rain shortened set.\u00a0 \u201cWe got that first one out of the way,\u201d Jason Kubel commented.\u00a0 . \u201cHopefully we can just keep rolling.\u201d\u00a0 Kubel’s seventh inning double put the Twins on top.<\/p>\n

Delmong Young is returning from injury but he has got off to a slow start this season; he has only no homers and only 6 RBIs .\u00a0 Justin Morneau has documented struggles, as well, and hit 2 of 12 in Tropicana Field, but he did have 2 hits and 2 RBIs despite the poor BA.\u00a0 Delmon Young is still a mere 25 years old and had a breakout 2010 season.\u00a0 His power numbers increased, as he lowered his strikeout ratio at the same time.\u00a0 He did only hit 6 homer runs at home last year, while totaling 15 on the road.\u00a0 Delmon Young’s PECOTA projection calls for a .283 BA, .320 OBP, and 111 RBIs in 523 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

Francisco Liriano is 1-3 this season with a 7.40 ERA.\u00a0 He is 2-1 with a 2.16 ERA vs Tampa Bay, however, and in his lone outing against the Rays last season he gave up only 1 run and 4 hits while striking out 10 batters in seven innings of work.\u00a0 The Rays won the game 8-6.<\/p>\n

Liriano’s ERA was at 9.42 after losing his first three starts, and the Twins can’t win with him on the mound unless he starts lowering his ERA.\u00a0 \u201cWe need him to get on a roll and start throwing the ball well,\u201d manager Ron Gardenhire said. \u201c(This is) a really good builder for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 9 of Tampa Bay’s last 12 games and the Rays are 10-3 SU in their last 13 games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 10 of Tampa Bay’s last 15 road games and the Rays are 4-1 SU in their last 5 on the road.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Tampa Bay’s last 6 games.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is 7-3 SU in their last 10 games against the Twins and the total has gone OVER in 4 of Tampa Bay’s last 5 games on the road against the Twins, while the Rays are 7-15 SU in their last 22 road games against the Minnesota Twins.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 12 of Minnesota’s last 16 games and the Twins are 5-2 SU in their last 7 games.\u00a0 The total has also gone UNDER in 6 of their last 8 at home and the Twins are 3-7 SU in their last 10 games against the Tampa Bay Rays.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Minnesota’s last 6 games against the Rays and it has gone OVER in 4 of the last 5 at home against the Rays.\u00a0 The Twins are 15-7 SU in their last 22 games at home against the Rays.<\/p>\n

Given Liriano’s struggles, it’s somewhat surprising to see the Twins as the favorites.\u00a0 He did pitch well against Tampa this year, but it’s a lot to speculate that he will pull out of that slump today necessarily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Minnesota Twins Double Header (Second Leg) April 27, 2011 at 8:10 PM EST Game 2 of double header: Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 MIN -133, TAM +123 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 MIN -131, TAM +121 Opening Total:\u00a0 7.5 Current Total:\u00a0 7.5 SP:\u00a0 TAM- Wade Davis, MIN- Francisco Liriano Finally, after a terrible start from the pitching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[240,150],"class_list":["post-15152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15153,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15152\/revisions\/15153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}