Game Picks - Monday: August 8, 2011

Sunday was a good day except that (as a Fan) the favorite team lost and the Game of the Day pick came up a-crapper. Ironically, this picker finally gave up picking the Reds to beat the Cubs and then they finally did. The Mets bullpen blew another game. To be sure, they stopped sweating a bit when they traded K-Rod, but they had no Plan B.

But there were a lot of good picks yesterday. It was predicted here that Tim Lincecum and the Giants would salvage the last game of the series against the Phillies and they did. Ervin Santana over Felix Hernandez was a good pick. Another Ian Kennedy win was a good pick. John Lannon and the Nationals over the Rockies was a good pick. And so were the White Sox and Brewers' sweeps.

All in all, it was a good day and the first non-losing Sunday in several weeks. Eleven games are on the schedule as teams continue to rarely get days off since the All Star break. Several teams have to be running out of steam at this point and this picker tries to keep that in mind during the picks. Monday should go like this:

• The White Sox over the Orioles: John Danks has pitched well in the second half and the White Sox should score a few runs against Jeremy Guthrie.
• The Marlins over the Braves: Derek Lowe has been a mess since early June. Brad (a-bird-in-the) Hand should be pretty decent. Stanton goes yard?
• The Twins over the Red Sox: The Red Sox just finished a tough series. Their bullpen is tired and they had to travel to Minneapolis late after last night's game. Tim Wakefield pitches, so hopefully, Jim Thome will get a start. Scott Baker has decent career numbers against the Red Sox.
• The Reds over the Rockies: Homer Bailey had a great start in his last outing. The Rockies are reeling and Jason Hammel hasn't been very good.
• The Royals over the Bay Rays: Luke Hochevar is 3-0 in his last few starts and this picker picked against him all three. Keeping the fingers out of that socket this time. Jeremy Hellickson will get little run support.
• The Padres over the Mets: The Padres just swept the Pirates and now have the Mets in their aim. Don't know if Tim Stuaffer will get any run support but he's a good pitcher and the Mets will be without Reyes. Mike Pelfrey with the loss.
• The Rangers over the Mariners: These are the types of games the Rangers need to win. Matt Harrison should be good at home and the Rangers should get enough runs off of Charlie Furbush to win.
• The Cubs over the Nationals: The combination of Matt Garza pitching against Chien-Ming Wang should result in a Nationals' loss. The Cubs have been playing better.
• The Diamondbacks over the Astros: Wandy Rodriguez will hang in there, but the D-backs should win behind Daniel Hudson.
• The Phillies over the Dodgers: Hiroki Kuroda shut down the Padres, but the Phillies aren't the Padres. And the Dodgers won't score off of Roy Halladay.

And the Game of the Day:

• The Giants over the Pirates: Alas, as we bury our hopes for the Pirates as they sink like the Titanic. Ryan Vogelsong with the win over Charlie Morton.

Yesterday: 10-5
Week: 10-5
Month: 55-40
Season: 929-781   Corrected: Forgot to carry the one and cost the total 100 wins!
Games of the Day: 80-47