MLB Game Picks - Monday: July 7, 2014

I am writing this post on Sunday night as Monday is a travel day for us as we leave Florida and head for Maine. :::sigh::: All good things come to an end, including vacation. And our travel day happens also to be my mom's 89th birthday. That's pretty cold, us leaving on her birthday. Not very good planning.

Since I am writing this early, the final tally for Sunday's games are not in. I have at least eleven correct picks for the day with the rest not looking too good. So Sunday is going to be a good picking day even though the Game of the Day pick is already wrong.

Say a prayer for us for safe travels, won't you?  Monday's picks:

• The Nationals over the Orioles: The Nats have played the Orioles sixteen times in the last several years and are only 6-10 against them, so that is the bad news. The good news is that Stephen Strasburg is on the mound and is better at home. The Nats being home also gives the O's one less bat in the lineup. Chris Tillman goes for the Orioles.
• The Braves over the Mets: Both teams are playing well. The Mets just destroyed the Rangers over the weekend. The Braves have won, what, ten straight? Ten has been the magic number for ending winning steaks. But I like Mike Minor over Daisuke Matsuzaka.
• The Red Sox over the White Sox: Except for the blown save on Saturday, the White Sox had a good weekend against the Mariners. But Scott Carroll is not going to pitch like Hector Noesi (which sounds really weird to say) and Clay Buchholz looks good since he's been back from the DL.
• The Reds over the Cubs: The Reds seem to stumble a lot against the Cubs and who ever knows how Edwin Jackson is going to pitch. I am going to go with Mike Leake who has been going well and is on my fantasy team.
• The Royals over the Rays: This is probably a stupid pick because the Royals NEVER win when you think they will win. They are the bane of my existence as a game picker. I cannot even imagine how hard it is to be their fan. Anyway, James Shields over Jake Odorizzi.
• The Indians over the Yankees: The Yankees are going to call up Shane Greene to start the game (according to ESPN.com). Greene is not a prospect. He has allowed over ten hits per nine innings in both of his last two years in the minors and this year his control has not been good. Justin Masterson is a much better pick.
• The Astros over the Rangers: The Astros haven't won in a while and seem due. Jarred Cosart is a good talent and Miles Mikolas sounds more like a Tolkien elf name than a baseball player name. Hey, that's how I roll.
• The Brewers over the Phillies: Yes, Cole Hamels is pitching and yes, he is a good pitcher. But his winning percentage the last two years says it all about how the team plays behind him. Marco Estrada seems a better pick at home.
• The Cardinals over the Pirates: Charlie Morton sure is confusing. He has raised his strikeout rate, but also his walk rate. He has given up less hits per inning but his FIP is slightly higher than last year. He is just a middle-of-the-road, league average pitcher. Adam Wainwright is anything but that description.
• The Rockies over the Padres: Ian Kennedy has a 2.88 FIP, which is hard to believe. He has also fared pretty well at Coors field in his seven career starts there. But I have to believe the Rockies win this one even if I am a bit concerned by Tyler Matzek pitching. At least he is a lefty, which sits Seth Smith.
• The Marlins over the Diamondbacks: Tom Koehler is back from maternity leave. So he should be feeling good about life. Though he is pitching away from his home park, I think he will do okay and be better than Chase Anderson.
• The Athletics over the Giants: Eric Chavez has been awful lately. So why am I picking the A's to win? Because I just dropped Chavez from my fantasy team which guarantees that he will have a great performance. Ryan Vogelsong goes for the Giants.
• The Angels over the Blue Jays: I was going to pick the Jays because J.A. Happ has had such a good year. But then I remembered that Edwin Encarnacion will be out and those Angels hitters are pretty darned good. Jered Weaver has to keep the ball in the park.

And the Game of the Day:

• The Mariners over the Twins: Kevin Correia should be a home run derby batting practice pitcher. Too harsh? Yeah, sorry. Probably. But it's not far from the truth. Hisashi Iwakuma should take care of the Twins.

Yesterday: 11-4, July: 54-31, Games of the Day: 49-43, Season: 736-606

I did after all get the final results.

MLB Game Picks - Sunday: July 6, 2014

Yesterday was a huge struggle and I feel fortunate to have clawed back to a .500 record. One pick, the Yankees, lost on a homer in the seventh and an error by the catcher in extra innings. I had the White Sox beating Felix Hernandez...and they did...for eight innings until the bullpen blew it. I had even written about the day's starting pitcher, Jose Quintana, and he was brilliant and deserved better.

I also talked about my fine string of extra inning games going my way recently. That all ended yesterday when two games went to free baseball and both went against me. And I completely didn't see the Rays bushwhacking Anibal Sanchez the way they did.

Oh well. Sunday is another day. The picks:

• The Indians over the Royals: Those darned Royals. You can never count on them for anything. Today's game could be tight with Corey Kluber at home facing Danny Duffy. A lot will depend on Duffy.
• The Reds over the Brewers: This is another pick that went bad yesterday. Perhaps Mat Latos can make good on it today. I am thinking that Yovani Gallardo continues to struggle, but you watch, he'll throw a masterpiece today.
• The Mets over the Rangers: It's funny how there are two Wheelers in MLB right now and both their names start with "Z." I am pretty zealous on Zack Wheeler today against Nick Tepesch. Tepesch has been on an every other game being good kick and this is the off start.
• The Braves over the Diamondbacks: Everyone is getting all excited about the Braves' winning streak. Well, the D-backs aren't exactly a good team., so let's not get too carried away. Even so, Alex Wood should win today over Wade Miley.
• The Orioles over the Red Sox: Jake Peavy just can't get it going this year and he looks mighty expendable these days. On the other side, Kevin Gausman should be placed in the Orioles' rotation and left there.
• The Nationals over the Cubs: I hate picking against Jake Arrieta gentille Arrieta because he has been so brilliant in his last four starts. I mean amazing. But I think Jordan Zimmermann will match him for zeroes and it will become a bullpen game. Then, anything can happen.
• The Pirates over the Phillies: I wouldn't say that this pick is a Jeff Locke to be correct, but the Phillies just look bad lately. Real bad. A.J. Burnett should have retired. But the pay is good I suppose.
• The Yankees over the Twins: Ricky Nolasco is the perfect picture of the Yankees' season. The last time he faced them, he gave up eleven base runners in six innings and still only gave up just one run. However, I do think Hiroki Kuroda will enjoy that big ballpark.
• The Marlins over the Cardinals: Marco Gonzalez has proven over his first two starts that he is not yet ready for prime time. Henderson Alvarez should get some run support today.
• The Angels over the Astros: Collin McHugh always strikes out more batters than innings, but he is at most a six inning pitcher. And the Astros simply cannot get nine outs or more from their bullpen. Garrett Richards won't help the Astros' cause either.
• The Athletics over the Blue Jays: I would be a little more torn about this one if the Blue Jays were playing better. But they are not. And the A's patient approach is not a good fit for Drew Hutchison. Despite all the hype about Jeff Samardzija, he had an awful June.
• The Dodgers over the Rockies: Yohan Flande will give up three or four runs. The question then is how many Josh Beckett gives up. I'm think the Dodgers jump on Flande and Beckett holds on for dear life at Coors.
• The Padres over the Giants: Chaka Hahn. Jesse Hahn. He's my guy and he's been awesome. Can the Padres get him any runs against Tim Lincecum who has made the Padres his own personal career saver?
• The Tigers over the Rays: I would like this game more for the Tigers if Victor Martinez wasn't hurting. But Rick Porcello has been terrific and David Price can give up a homer or two along with his ten strikeouts.

And the Game of the Day:

• The Mariners over the White Sox: Until the White Sox can close out a game, they are hard to pick consistently. Hector Noesi has been pretty good surprisingly, but the bullpen blows all his games. Taijuan Walker, on the other hand, is the bomb.

Yesterday: 8-8, July: 43-27, Games of the Day: 49-42, Season: 725-602

Jose Quintana is better than you think

The Chicago White Sox have not been very good the last couple of seasons even though this year is a lot better than last year. Chris Sale gets a lot of the attention with the press along with some rookie from Cuba who has 27 homers already. An often overlooked player on the team is another lefty that has to follow Sale in the rotation. He is Jose Quintana. And he is much better than you think.

If I was to ask you where you would find Jose Quintana on Frangraphs.com's leaderboard, where do you think you would find him? Probably most would say around 30th or somewhere like that. Would you ever guess that he is tied for twelfth along with Zimmermann and Richards? Probably not. Here are a couple of other numbers you might not guess:

• FIP - 20th, tied with Greinke
• Home Runs per fly ball - 10th, tied with Zimmermann

But Jose Quintana is 5-7. So he can't be that good, right? Wrong. Consider that he pitches in front of the 24th least efficient defense out of thirty teams with the 26th worst fielding percentage. That has led to eight unearned runs during his time on the mound. More than that, it leads to more batters to face and get in trouble.

Jose Quintana is only 25-years-old. He is already in his third big league season. His numbers do not put him among the elite pitchers of the league, but considering the team around him, he's doing great.

Quintana was signed by the Mets as a seventeen-year-old out of Columbia. That was in 2006. The Mets released him a year later. He was awful and could not find home plate. His season with the Mets resulted in double-digit walks per nine. He did not play professional baseball in the United States in 2007. In 2008, the Yankees signed him.

His rise with the Yankee organization was painfully slow. He was granted free agency and re-signed with the Yankees in 2010. He went 10-2 in High A for the Yankees in 2011 and then he was a free agent again. The White Sox picked him up.

The White Sox started him in Double-A in 2012 and called him up early in the season that year (making the big jump from Double-A) and he has never looked back since. He has put together three solid seasons despite learning on the job. The White Sox have a great pitching coach, so he could not have had a better education. And he is only going to get better.

And he has been durable. He does not miss starts. He started 33 games last year and finished with 200 innings. This year, averaging 6.2 innings per outing, he is on pace to slightly beat those numbers.

As a lefty, he has been tough on left-handed batters, limiting them to a .650 OPS this season. But he is nearly as good against batters from the other side who have had a .680 OPS against him. He throws both a two-seam and a four-seam fastball combined about 59 percent of the time. His fastball has rated well for the last two season. His curve is his second best pitch and it has improved greatly this year.

One of his biggest strengths is that he throws an unusually high number of first pitch strikes. He was over 65% in that category last year and over 64% of the time this year. While he could still cut down a bit on his walks, he has a better chance setting up hitters if he can pour that first pitch in for a strike more often than not.

Quintana is on a particularly good run right now. He has pitched 21 innings in his last three starts and has given up only three runs in those games. He has allowed only one run in his last two outings against the Orioles and Blue Jays, both wins, against two good offenses.

Perhaps someday Jose Quintana will pitch for a better team with better defense. He would be considered a ground ball pitcher with a 1.53 ground ball to fly ball ratio so defense is important to him. Someday, with a better team behind him and a few less walks, Jose Quintana will be a star. His is not a star now, but he is very good and much better than most people think.

MLB Game Picks - Saturday: July 5, 2014

The Fourth of July was a bit of a bumpy ride for the Game Picks but the day still pulled out with an 8-6 record with one postponement. That's not bad. Boston and Baltimore will play two games today to make up for yesterday. Surprisingly, the Mets did get their game in despite Arthur and even more surprising was my pick that Yu Darvish would lose to the Mets bore out. What did the Rangers accomplish by holding him up? Two losses it would appear.

My extra-inning streak continued as the A's outlasted the Blue Jays and won, 1-0. And Kershaw made my Game of the Day pick look easy. Though, I should get some demerits for stating that the scoreless streak would end. It did not. Clayton Kershaw is amazing.

Jason Hammel made my pick against the Cubs look bad and then was traded with Jeff Samardzija to the A's. The strong get stronger and the Cubs get...well...something...

Saturday's picks:

• The Red Sox over the Orioles:  I still think Jon Lester beats Miguel Gonzalez, just like I did yesterday.
• The Yankees over the Twins: I'd like to see MiLB lifer, Yohan Pino get his first win. Two of his three starts weren't bad. But the Yankees are bouncing back a bit on offense and David Phelps will need to be good today to win.
• The White Sox over the Mariners: Jose Quintana is about the most underrated pitcher in baseball and I think since he is a lefty, he will shut down the Mariners. It all depends on if the White Sox can scratch a few off of Felix Hernandez, who I hardly ever pick against.
• The Marlins over the Cardinals: These last two picks are frightening. But Andrew Heaney is too good not to win eventually and the Cards have trouble against lefties. Plus, Shelby Miller has been erratic.
• The Pirates over the Phillies: This is a punt as both David Buchanan and Edinson Volquez are not very good or reliable. The Pirates are better than the Phillies, so we'll go with that.
• The Tigers over the Rays: Anibal Sanchez has been the Tigers' best starter for a month and a half now and even though Victor Martinez is out, I think the Tigers will score three runs against Chris Archer who is not as good against everyone else as he is against the Yankees and Red Sox.
• The Braves over the Diamondbacks: I need to stop haranguing Aaron Harang. He has won more than he has lost and the Braves are rolling right now. Mike Bolsinger has been pretty good for the D-backs, though.
• The Rockies over the Dodgers: Poor Dan Haren has to keep following Kershaw. That is like Enya following Mozart. I mean, Enya is pretty good, but...  Besides, Jorge De La Rosa will have an advantage at Coors since he is used to it.
• The Reds over the Brewers: For some reason, I have this man crush on Homer Bailey. He must be pretty good because his contract is always bandied about whenever talk of Jon Lester's money talks come up. So let's go with him over Matt Garza, who I decidedly do not have a man crush.
• The Royals over the Indians: Remember that thing I said yesterday about the Indians at home? Yeah. Forget all that. The Royals schooled them yesterday and Jeremy Guthrie has found a mile or two more on his fastball lately. T.J. House is a good name for an actor.
• The Red Sox over the Orioles: Yeah, I'm looking at a sweep here. John Lackey has gotten beat his last two times out, but should be better than Ubaldo Jimenez even though the latter had a rare good performance last time out.
• The Padres over the Giants: All Odrisamer Despaigne has done since was called up was confound writers with spelling his name and winning. Maybe in that order too. Tim Hudson is hard to count against, but this Cuban guy has been great.
• The Mets over the Rangers: The difficult part of Bartolo Colon's starts is that you know one out of every four are going to be colossal stinkers. But you never know which one of the four it's going to be. It could be today, or it could not be today. That's his own personal crap shoot. Either way, the Mets hit Colby Lewis.
• The Angels over the Astros: Did you see Mike Trout's walk off homer? The catcher was getting ready to dig it out of the dirt and Trout hits a two iron over the wall. Amazing. The win-less Franklin Morales over Scott Feldman.
• The Athletics over the Blue Jays: This has been an incredibly pitched series but the Blue Jays have lost both. Scott Kazmir is another great starter and should be slightly better than Mark Buehrle.

And the Game of the Day:

• The Nationals over the Cubs: Who is going to pitch for the Cubs today? Your guess is as good as mine (or Yahoo's or MLB.com's). The Nationals will start Gio Gonzalez, so that is good enough for me.

Yesterday: 8-6, July: 35-19, Games of the Day: 48-42, Season: 717-594

MLB Game Picks - Friday: July 4, 2014

Happy 238th birthday, United States of America!

The picks had another fine day yesterday with a 6-3 record. The Cardinals and Diamondbacks put an early scare into the day by winning and putting the picks off to a tough start, but everything except for a Rangers' loss went according to predictions.

The Rangers loss peeved me a little bit. Yu Darvish was supposed to start, but he was pulled because of unknown weather. Come on now. I'm glad the Rangers can throw around losses with the season they are having. What a stupid thing. Don't you try to win every game?

Anyway, enjoy the holiday and holiday baseball. The picks:

• The Nationals over the Cubs: Gosh, they play this game at eleven o'clock in the morning today. Tanner Roark lost to the Cubs at Wrigley a week ago and will want to avenge that. Jason Hammel is adding to his resume for some team who might trade for him.
• The Red Sox over the Orioles: Jon Lester is making himself expensive either for the Red Sox who finally cough up the money or for somebody else next year. Miguel Gonzalez is the weakest of the Orioles' rotation.
• The Yankees over the Twins: Chase Whitley should have a decent game today in that big ballpark. Zealous Wheeler provided a spark and even though Kyle Gibson has had a successful season, his lack of strikeouts concern me against a team like the Yankees.
• The Athletics over the Blue Jays: I need to stop thinking of Tommy Milone as a liability for the A's. He's had a good season and has been steadily good for two months now. As a lefty, he eliminates Rasmus and Adam Lind from the picture. I also think the A's will get Marcus Stroman to throw too many pitches up front.
• The Pirates over the Phillies: The battle for Pennsylvania should be a bit of a mismatch today as Roberto Hernandez has no business beating the Pirates or Gerrit Cole. Should not the Philadelphia team always be home on July 4th? Seriously. It's Philadelphia's day more than any other.
• The Giants over the Padres: The combined records for Matt Cain and Eric Stults are 3-17. Ugh. When two pitchers have had that little success, you go with the better team...the Giants.
• The Indians over the Royals: The Indians love playing at home and Josh Tomlin was lights out his last time pitching. Yordano Ventura is the wild card as you never know if he will be brilliant or all over the place.
• The Tigers over the Bay Rays: To be honest, I have no idea which team will win this game. Alex Cobb has not been great since he came back from injury and that surprises me. The Emoticon, Drew Smyly had a good game against the Rangers and then stunk up the joint against the Astros. I have no idea.
• The Reds over the Brewers: The Cinderella season for Alfredo Simon continues and one more win today could land him at the All Star Game. Kyle Lohse is 9-2 himself and will not just roll over. Interesting game.
• The Mariners over the White Sox: Roenis Elias is the key to this pick. As a lefty, he should hurt the White Sox with Adam Dunn and Adam Eaton. Can the M's scratch out a couple of runs off of Chris Sale? That's the big question.
• The Mets over the Rangers: The Rangers so deserve to lose after dickering around with Yu Darvish. And isn't that hurricane going to threaten this game in New York today? Besides, I like Jon Niese.
• The Cardinals over the Marlins: Lance Lynn sure had a lynning his last time out. Can he avoid that big crooked number today? He is at home, so he should be comfortable at least. Nate Eovaldi should win more with his stuff, but doesn't.
• The Diamondbacks over the Braves: This is my upset pick of the day. The Braves are at home and Ervin Santana can have a good game and make this look bad. But Josh Collmenter has been like the D-backs' good luck charm with his winning record in a losing season.
• The Angels over the Astros: Dallas Keuchel is back and has had a nice season. But his left-handedness is not as much a factor against the Angels. C.J. Wilson should win at home today.

And the Game of the Day:

• The Dodgers over the Rockies: Clayton Kershaw. Do I need to say more? Yes, his breaking stuff will not break as much at Coors and his scoreless streak will come to an end. But he will win. The Rockies are starting Jair Jurrjens! Remember him? This cannot go well...

Yesterday: 6-3, July: 27-13, Games of the Day: 47-42, Season: 709-588