{"id":16176,"date":"2011-06-20T12:34:31","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T17:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16176"},"modified":"2011-06-20T12:34:31","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T17:34:31","slug":"interleague-battle-tampa-bay-rays-at-milwaukee-brewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/interleague-battle-tampa-bay-rays-at-milwaukee-brewers-16176\/","title":{"rendered":"Interleague Battle: Tampa Bay Rays At Milwaukee Brewers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Milwaukee Brewers<\/strong>
\nJune 20, 2011 at 8:10 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 MIL -145, TAM +125<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 MIL -140, TAM +120<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 9<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 9<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 TAM- Jeff Niemann; MIL- Chris Narveson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Jeff Niemann will take the mound for the Rays tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Brewers are continuing to play at a level above where they were expected to be this season, and sit 7 games above .500 despite a rough road trip in which they dropped 5 of 7 games.\u00a0 They were outscored 24-11 over those games and lost 2 of 3 to the Red Sox over last weekend.<\/p>\n

Chris Narveson will take the mound for the Brewers tonight.\u00a0 Narveson is 4-4 with a 4.48 ERA and has won his last 2 decisions.\u00a0 On Wednesday against the Cubs he gave up 4 runs and 6 hits in 5 1\/3rds innings, and felt he could put some of that blame on the rain delay.\u00a0 \u201cIt was tough having to sit around for a couple of hours before the game (with a rain delay), but, mentally, I felt strong,\u201d Narveson remarked.<\/p>\n

Chris Narveson started last season in the pen but moved into the rotation in mid-April where he compiled a 4.99 ERA as a starter.\u00a0 His fastball is only in the upper 80s, but he has a few off speed pitches that frame it and make it seem like a stronger pitch than it actually is.\u00a0 His PECOTA projection calls for a 6-6 record with 119 Innings Pitched with a 4.74 ERA.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay is sitting 6 games above .500 and they have won 2 of the only 3 games played between these teams so far in a series that was in Tampa Bay in 2005.\u00a0 In that series, Prince Fielder hit 2 doubles, in what was his major league debut.\u00a0 He hasn’t faced Jeff Niemann yet in his career.<\/p>\n

Niemann was just on the 15 day DL list and just pitched 5 1\/3rds scoreless innings in a triple-A rehab stint.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve been working and doing everything I can,\u201d Niemann said.<\/p>\n

Niemann had a 3.12 ERA well into early August last season, but this year is over 2.5 runs higher than that at 5.74 and his record is 1-4, well worse than the 10-8 predicted by his PECOTA Projection in Baseball Prospectus.\u00a0 They also predicted a 3.94 ERA.\u00a0 After the shoulder problems last season he was destroyed for a 9.82 ERA in 7 starts.<\/p>\n

Ryan Braun of the Brewers is riding a 12 game hitting streak.<\/p>\n

Johnny Damon of the Rays could play some LF in this series.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay is 9-4 SU in their last 13 games and the total has gone UNDER in 6 of their last 7 games.\u00a0 The Rays are 5-2 SU in their last 7 on the road.<\/p>\n

The Milwaukee Brewers are 2-5 SU in their last 7 games and the total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 6 games.\u00a0 The Brewers are 15-3 SU in their last 18 games at home.<\/p>\n

Narveson is the better pitcher here, and that, along with the fact they are both the better team and at home, are the reasons why the Brewers are favored for this game.\u00a0 Niemann hasn’t been particuarly impressive dating back to his shoulder injury of last season and may never experience the same success he did in 2009 when he went 13-6 with a 3.94 ERA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays AT Milwaukee Brewers June 20, 2011 at 8:10 PM EST Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 MIL -145, TAM +125 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 MIL -140, TAM +120 Opening Total:\u00a0 9 Current Total:\u00a0 9 SP:\u00a0 TAM- Jeff Niemann; MIL- Chris Narveson The Brewers are continuing to play at a level above where they were expected to be this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[266,150],"class_list":["post-16176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16176","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=16176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16177,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16176\/revisions\/16177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}