Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Game Picks - Tuesday: April 2, 2013

Monday gave us our first semi-full day of Major League Baseball and it was delicious. Only having all thirty teams in action would have been better. But it was fun nonetheless. How did the Game Picks fare during this first big day of action? Well...it was a mixed bag. Half the picks were correct and half were incorrect. Not a great start, but it is a better start than the Yankees, Rangers and Cardinals have made.

Speaking of the Yankees, I knew they would lose. C.C. Sabathia is never good against the Red Sox and has a history of being pretty terrible on Opening Day. And picking against old man-crush, Ian Kennedy, was a mistake as he had a good day against the Cardinals.

But Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper had big days and the Nationals began their season of high expectations on a bright note. The Cubs beat A.J. Burnett as Jeff Samardzija was untouchable. That pick went sour. Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw both threw nothing but zeroes to make those picks come out on top. But so did Chris Sale who out-dueled James Shields for a 1-0 win. I had it in reverse. But I did predict a tough adjustment for the Royals, who hit so well in Arizona, which can be a mirage.

Opening Day, like any other day in baseball, is a day where anything can happen and did with wild games in Atlanta and Milwaukee. The former was an incorrect pick while the latter was correct. The Mets, which I picked, scored eleven runs. The Mets!?

There are seven games on today's schedule. The Orioles, Blue Jays, Indians and Rays will all play their first games today. Only one of the games is a day game. Here are Tuesday's picks:

  • The Rays over the Orioles: David Price is one of the best and ace's dominated yesterday. The Orioles counter with Jason Hammel, which shows you the one big difference of these two AL East competitors. Many experts are still picking the Rays to win the AL East. We'll see.
  • The Blue Jays over the Indians: The Indians--or most of them anyway--have never seen R.A. Dickey pitch. They are in for a tough day. Justin Masterson, a ground ball pitcher to the extreme, will need to have a good BABIP day. The Blue Jays should win.
  • The Brewers over the Rockies: This is a game where anything can happen. You have a pitching match up of Jorge de la Rosa against Marco Estrada. Yeah, go ahead and pick that for me, will you? The pick goes to the home team, Brewers.
  • The Cardinals over the Diamondbacks: This is another tough game to gauge. Jaime Garcia had a good spring after a tough season a year ago and goes for the Cardinals. Trevor Cahill goes for the Diamondbacks.
  • The Mariners over the Athletics: This should be another low scoring game. Hisashi Iwakuma was a big surprise last season and had a good spring considering it was pitched in Arizona. He should keep the A's quiet. Jarrod Parker had a bad spring and got lit up in Arizona, but that should change in Oakland.
  • The Dodgers over the Giants: Dodgers' starter, Hyun-Kin Ryu, is a total mystery to me. It looks like he was tough during the spring, but I have no idea about him at all. Madison Bumgarner is a great pitcher and had a great spring, but still going with the Dodgers in this one.

And the Game of the Day!

  • The Rangers over the Astros: Yu Darvish puts the Rangers back on track and the Rangers should hit Lucas Harrell to the tune of three or four runs. That should be enough behind Darvish to win this one.

Yesterday: 6-6
Week:  7-6
Month:  7-6
Season: 7-6
Games of the Day: 1-0

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