I had success backing the Mets yesterday and plan to do so again today.
This is a fairly similar handicap to yesterday, with New York’s extra motivation a key factor here.
I think the line should be relatively even in this one, yet the Mets are very healthy $2.35 underdogs.
They’ve been the slightly better team all season, 3 games and 12 runs ahead of the Nats in the standings.
Max Scherzer will pitch for Washington here and he tends to always get a lot of love in the market.
Given they’ve got no stakes at all here, I can’t imagine they’ll risk him for too many innings.
Rick Porcello has been serviceable for the Mets and Washington’s batting lineup is nothing to be afraid of.
As a pure value play, I’ll take the team with something to play for.
The Pirates started actually getting the job done against Chicago in their last series, so we had to temporarily stop fading them.
This Cleveland side is better than the Cubs and they’ll be highly motivated to play here.
They’ve been a significantly better side than Pittsburgh on the season, 15 games and 128 runs ahead in the standings.
They’ve also got an excellent pitching option on deck and I’d expect a good day from Carrasco against this limited Pittsburgh batting lineup.
The Pittsburgh pitching staff isn’t anything special and should have their hands full against Cleveland’s bevy of hitters.
Throw in Cleveland’s strong motivation as they chase playoff seeding and they should get the job done comfortably here.