Game Picks - Monday: July 9, 2012

This game picker is a man obsessed. This Game of the Day feature is starting to become a big issue. To refresh your memory, every game is picked every day. But the pick that seems the most likely to be correct is selected as the Game of the Day. Seven days ago, the record stood at twenty games over .500 at, 53-33. Seven days in a row now, the pick has been wrong. So even though the body of picks have gone 21-10 the last two days, all that matters is that Game of the Day pick. And right now it's going about as well as the Phillies.

Oh, and speaking of the Phillies, they lost again today for their tenth loss in eleven games. The pick bucked the trend and looked for a Phillies victory. Wrong again, big boy. There were other failures. The Nationals' meltdown in the late innings messed up that pick. Oh yes, and Brad Mills. Not the manager. The pitcher. Brad Mills. Yesterday's picks made fun of him starting for the Angels.Who is laughing now? The maddening Athletics and Mariners' series finished on the wrong side despite Felix Hernandez's heroics. Terrible offenses on those teams.

So, you might be asking why there is a Game Picks column today when there are no games. Good question. For one, yesterday's results had to be reported. Secondly, this picker thought it would be fun to pick the winner of the Home Run Derby. Perhaps this is an artificial means of stirring interest in an non-stirring event for this observer. But whatever. And the kicker is, the pick has only a one in eight chance of being correct. Those sure beat the 50/50 odds of a regular game pick.

So the thought process goes like this. First, nobody from the National League is going to win the derby. Most of them are first timers except for Matt Kemp, who really should not be risking his health to participate. So the winner has to be from the American League. Mark Trumbo is a first-timer and though he could hit the moon with his bat, big and young guys like him never do well. Joey Bautista has an excellent shot at it. Prince Fielder is doing this for the fourth time. He has the experience and knows what to expect. And of course, Robinson Cano won it last year. So that is three guys with a real shot at winning.

And the pick goes to: Robinson Cano.

Yesterday: 9-6

Week: 9-6

Month: 65-51

Season: 697-567

Games of the Day: 53-40   grrrr