Game Picks - Wednesday: April 13, 2011

This picking gig has turned into a roller-coaster. Good day. Bad day. Good day. Bad day. Yesterday was a bad day. Perhaps the three rained out games didn't help. But that doesn't hide the fact that Mr. Pineda was terrific against the Blue Jays, Chris Carpenter had nothing for the Cardinals, the Royals' bullpen couldn't win the game nor could the Athletics bullpen. Ah well. Such is life.

None of the three rained out games will be replayed today. The Mets will play a double-header on Thursday. The Yankees/Orioles and Brewers/Pirates have decided to reschedule their make up games later on in the season. That leaves us the standard fifteen games to mull through. Here goes:

• The Tigers over the Rangers: Losing Josh Hamilton was huge (and yes, he should have kept his mouth shut) and the Rangers are forced to start Dave Bush today. Ugh. Give the Tigers and Scherzer the win.
• The Twins over the Royals: Liriano should get back on his game against the Royals and the Twins should torch Kyle Davies.
• The White Sox over the Athletics: This picker has already flip-flopped twice on this game. Anderson has been very good but can't buy a team run. Danks hasn't been that good but is lefty and neutralizes some of the A's putrid offense. That fact finally won out.
• The Blue Jays over the Mariners: Love this kid, Kyle Drabek. Remember his father too. Drabek out pitches Vargas for the win.
• The Yankees over the Orioles: Same match ups as yesterday moved up to today. Burnett should win over a five-inning Tillman.
• The Angels over the Indians: Just can't pick the Indians when Carrasco starts. Going with Santana and the Angels, who at least should get a decent pitching performance.
• The Brewers over the Pirates: Yesterday's match up is still today's match up. Marcum still beats Correia.
• The Phillies over the Nationals: Livan got the Fan yesterday. Again. But Lannan won't be able to match zeros with Halladay.
• The Reds over the Padres: Wood should out pitch Stauffer and the Reds' offense is simply too much for the Padres to overcome.
• The Rockies over the Mets: The same thoughts on the pitching match up as yesterday. Emil Rogers is on a mission and is pitching for his sick dad. Niese is nice, but not nice enough today. This Fan still thinks the Mets hired the wrong manager.
• The Braves over the Marlins: The marquee match up of the day with Josh Johnson versus Tim Hudson. Both pitchers have been excellent so far. But the Braves are at home and the Marlins' defense has been far too leaky.
• The Red Sox over the Bay Rays: This will be an offensive game with Lackey versus Shields. And the Red Sox have more offense.
• The Cubs over the Astros: Zambrano should be able to dominate the Astros' offense and though the Fan loves Wandy Rodriguez, the Cubs have a lot of righty bats to score against him.
• The Diamondbacks over the Cardinals: Westbrook has been a stream out of control so far. He has a 9.90 ERA. Kennedy is a good starter for the D-backs. Berkman is hitting well though.

And the Game of the Day:

• The Dodgers over the Giants: Switching strategies for this feature today. The clearcut winner thing isn't working, so we'll go with an underdog. Ted Lilly pitches a heck of a game and Sanchez again doesn't survive the sixth inning.

Yesterday: 5-7
Week: 18-19
Month: 81-73
Season: 81-73
Games of the Day: 4-8