{"id":15299,"date":"2011-05-06T13:53:56","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T18:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15299"},"modified":"2011-05-06T13:53:56","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T18:53:56","slug":"north-of-the-border-detroit-tigers-at-toronto-blue-jays-mlb-expert-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/north-of-the-border-detroit-tigers-at-toronto-blue-jays-mlb-expert-picks-15299\/","title":{"rendered":"North of the Border: Detroit Tigers at Toronto Blue Jays MLB Expert Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers and Toronto Blue Jays are both trying to get their records back to the .500 mark heading into a three-game series at the Rogers Centre<\/p>\n

Detroit Tigers at Toronto Blue Jays<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Toronto Blue Jays are slight home favorites over the Detroit Tigers on Friday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Detroit rides in on a three-game winning streak and will be seeking its first four-game tear of the season in Friday\u2019s opener.\u00a0 The Tigers had lost seven straight games before their current streak.\u00a0 One of the victories came in a solid 6-3 win over the Yankees on Thursday afternoon, as the club outscored the Bronx Bombers 14-5 over the final three games of the home series.\u00a0 \u201cHopefully it gives us some more confidence playing a team like the Yankees and beating them three out of four,\u201d said Brennan Boesch.\u00a0 \u201cI think we\u2019re going to play with some momentum and some more passion and get some wins on the road.\u201d\u00a0 Detroit is 6-10 on the road this season.<\/p>\n

Tigers starting pitcher Phil Coke will be making his eight appearance (sixth start) of the season tonight, coming in with a 1-4 record and 4.50 ERA, but opponents are hitting just .237 against him.\u00a0 The left-hander is coming off a solid six-inning performance on the road against the Indians, giving up just two runs and four hits over six innings.\u00a0 Detroit has failed to pick up a victory in his last three starts and has been outscored 25-10 in the process.\u00a0 Coke will be facing the Blue Jays for the 11th time (first start) in his career, coming in with an even 1-1 record and 1.17 ERA, giving up just a single run in 7.2 innings.<\/p>\n

Toronto failed to drop its 12th consecutive series at Tropicana Field with a listless 3-1 defeat to Tampa Bay on Thursday.\u00a0 The Blue Jays will likely be without starters Jose Bautista (neck) and Aaron Hill (hamstring), which is a major blow to the offense.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s all positive signs right now,\u201d said manager John Farrell.\u00a0 Bautista has missed the past three games after hitting an AL-best .357 with nine home runs.\u00a0 The club has been involved in plenty of close contests early in the season, as 21 of Toronto\u2019s 31 games this season have been decided by two runs or less.\u00a0 The team is 10-13 versus right-handed starters this season.<\/p>\n

Blue Jays starting pitcher Jesse Litsch enters with an even 2-2 mark and 4.60 ERA and is coming off a sub-par performance last time out.\u00a0 The right-hander dropped a 5-2 road contest to the Yankees, giving up five earned runs and six hits over six innings of work, including two home runs.\u00a0 Litsch will be making his fourth career start versus the Tigers, bringing in a 0-1 record and 3.44 ERA.\u00a0 He has a winning record in his career at home, posting a 11-10 mark and 3.66 ERA in 28 starts.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Blue Jays due to their 5-0 record in home games after a road trip of seven or more days, while the Tigers are 18-39 on the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers and Toronto Blue Jays are both trying to get their records back to the .500 mark heading into a three-game series at the Rogers Centre Detroit Tigers at Toronto Blue Jays Detroit rides in on a three-game winning streak and will be seeking its first four-game tear of the season in Friday\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[48,2151,2401,4913,1748,223],"class_list":["post-15299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-jesse-litsch","tag-jose-bautista","tag-phil-coke","tag-rogers-centre","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15299","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15301,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15299\/revisions\/15301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}