MLB Pick of the Day: Orioles vs. Yankees

By: Willie Bee 

So, is this the weekend we separate the men from the boys, or in this case, the New York Yankees from the Baltimore Orioles? The Orioles have been nipping at the Bombers heels, closing in on the AL East lead. How should MLB bettors play this one?

Our weeklong trek with the O's continues the next few days from the Bronx, where the top two clubs in the AL East collide in their next-to-last meeting of the 2012 campaign. Make that their next-to-last regular season clash on the schedule. As improbable as it might sound, bothBaltimore and New York appear headed for the postseason, and the Orioles arrive in the Big Apple eager to upset the division leaders and tell the stat geeks and their Pythagorean theory to take a hike, at least for one season. 

This has been a series dominated by the Yankees since the infamous Jeffrey Maier incident during the 1996 ALCS, and the MLB odds for Friday's series opener suggest the Bronx Bombers will once again emerge victorious.  New York opened as hefty -190 chalk and had been bet up to -200 by Friday morning. 

The total for Game 1, which pits veteran Hiroki Kuroda for the Yanks against Orioles rookie Miguel Gonzalez, started at 9 with the UNDER priced at -115. Most shops have evened up the O/U juice roughly 12 hours before first pitch.

We'll come back to the pitchers in a bit, but first focus our attention to the current standings and how this head-to-head series has gone so far. Buck Showalter's Birds have moved to within three games of the division-leading Pinstripe Posse after a successful 5-1 homestand that concluded with four games against the Chicago White Sox this week, including a nice win in Thursday's finale. 

New York took the day off, the second straight Thursday Joe Girardi's gang has rested, following Wednesday's loss to the Blue Jays. The Yankees have dropped 8-of-13 after going 1-2 to start this homestand, and what was a 10-game bulge in the AL East on July 18 has just about evaporated. They might have the best pitcher in their arsenal to get this weekend off on a winning note. 

No AL teams have seen each other more often in the regular season than the O's and Yanks, and they've managed to do it spread over five cities with at least one relocation for each franchise. Friday will be the 2,124th game in the rivalry, and if you include Game 1 of the '96 ALCS, New York is 174-93 vs. Baltimore since the little runt leaned over the right field wall nearly 16 years ago. That has been tempered a bit this season with the Yankees 6-5 overall, and the Orioles 5-2 the last seven, including taking two of three during their two trips into NYC. 

Kuroda's 12-9 record is a bit of a disguise for how well he has been pitching this season (2.98 ERA) and especially the last month and a half. He's lasted less than six innings just one time in 17 starts since May 21 (NY 12-5 in that span), and sports a 2.97 ERA in the team's five setbacks, a hundredth of a tick below his season clip, which is sixth in the American League. He'll be facing the Orioles for just the second time in his career, the first at the end of April, when he tossed seven 4-hit, 1-run frames. 

Gonzalez has endured a few hiccups along the way since being inserted into Baltimore's rotation just before the All-Star break, but it's tough to argue with the 5.7 units he has stuffed into bettors' pockets while Baltimore is 6-3 in his nine starts. The Guadalajara native won here as a +155 dog a little more than a month ago, though it wasn't pretty (6.2 IP, 4 ER, 3 HR), and the Orioles are 4-1 in his five road efforts which represents all but five cents of his net profit at baseball betting windows. 

Baltimore skipped Gonzalez his last time through the order as the team hopes to keep him fresh for the last month of the season. He pitched as both a starter and reliever with Triple-A club inNorfolk, and has pitched 111 innings combined so far in 2012. Gonzalez was just about untouchable while hurling for the Tides (0.716 WHIP) 

Mother Nature should cooperate all weekend with clear skies until Sunday's matinee comes around and results in a cloudy, cool afternoon when highs just scrape the 80ºF mark. Friday will be a bit warm and muggy, however, with west winds blowing out to center (10-12 mph). 

Warm and humid is a troubling point for me.  We have a couple of starting pitchers that are very heavy to the UNDER so far, Gonzalez 7-2 down low and Kuroda 20-6 that direction, or thereabouts depending when one made their wagers on a couple of games.  Granted, the Yankees can destroy a total by their own on a given night. 

I'm still going to follow the UNDER trends for both pitchers, and make my play on the clubs falling short of the total on Friday. 

My pick: Under 9 (-105)  +++