By: Willie Bee
Sunday's battle at AT&T Park (8 PM) has the potential to be a good old-fashioned pitchers duel as Tim Hudson takes the ball for Atlanta against San Francisco's Tim Lincecum. MLB odds roughly 12 hours in advance of Lincecum's first pitch have the Giants laying -120 and a 7 run total that favors the OVER at some locales.
San Francisco took the first two games of the series beforeAtlanta came to life to win Saturday's third match. Braves hitters busted out of their slump in the 7-3 victory, scoring four of those runs late in the proceedings. The triumph left Atlanta 2-4 on this weeklong roadie and put a halt to the Giants' 5-game string of dubyas.
Hudson is looking to bounce back from his first loss in nearly two months after helping Atlanta to eight consecutive wins in his assignments. Tuesday's setback in Washington (6 IP, 4 ER) was also the veteran righthander's second straight hiccup on the road with the Phillies lighting him up in his previous start away from Turner Field.
Tim Hudson and the Atlanta Braves face Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants tonight. What are the odds makers offering, and where are we best suited to lay our MLB picks tonight?
Inflation is running rampant in Major League Baseball. Just seven years ago, you could buy the entire Cincinnati Reds franchise for $270 million; the Los Angeles Dodgers spent about that much for four players on Saturday, one of whom is on the disabled list following season-ending elbow surgery.
The big trade between the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox is sure to be discussed and dissected Sunday night when ESPN wraps up another week on the MLB slate with the finale of a 4-game set in San Francisco where the Giants host the Atlanta Braves. It will be a major topic for the ESPN broadcasters for a couple of reasons, one of which is they always seem to have something else to talk about other than the game on the field. In this case, however, it's a subject that is bound to affect both the Giants and Braves, along with the rest of the teams in the National League playoff hunt.
Sunday's battle at AT&T Park (8 PM) has the potential to be a good old-fashioned pitchers duel as Tim Hudson takes the ball for Atlanta against San Francisco's Tim Lincecum. MLB odds roughly 12 hours in advance of Lincecum's first pitch have the Giants laying -120 and a 7 run total that favors the OVER at some locales.
Now we get to see if Saturday's showing was a breaking out for the Braves offense, or just a 1-game fluke. Atlanta scored 17 runs in losing six of seven before the win in Game 3 of this series, and could muster but a 6-for-51 (.118) average with runners in scoring position during that span. The Braves went 4-for-15 in that situation on Saturday, certainly an improvement though they still missed several opportunities to really break the game open.
He has solid credentials over his career vs. the Giants, going 7-4 with a 3.29 ERA. One of those wins in the recent stretch of eight Braves victories came at San Francisco 's expense about a week after the All-Star Game, with Hudson working into the eighth and allowing two runs.
Coupled with the Dodgers win on Saturday, San Francisco 's loss cut the lead over LA in the NL West to two games. The Giants will head out on the road to take on the weak sisters of the NL Central (Houston and Chicago) after this game, presenting an opportunity for them to at least maintain that advantage if not build on it.
Lincecum's 7-13 record and 5.30 ERA will cause most to do a double-take on the former 2-time Cy Young winner's stats. Lincecum has been a far better pitcher in the second half with a 3.10 ERA and the Giants 5-3 in his starts, but The Freak has still been shaky hurling from his home mound. Lincecum is 1-3 in his last four efforts at AT&T Park
My play for Sunday will be on the two lineups to find their strokes just enough to send this matchup OVER the total.
My pick: OVER 7 (-105) +++
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