Friday MLB Best Bet: Blue Jays vs. Twins

Written by Jake Thompson
Friday, 13 May 2011 18:14

The Blue Jays and Twins will headline our MLB best bet for Friday.

We’ve been hitting at close to 75% on our MLB best bets over the last few weeks and will look to continue our recent success in the 8:10 PM ET game between the Toronto Blue Jays (17-20) and the Minnesota Twins (12-23).  It’s been such a rough year for Minnesota that their 4-8 mark at home is actually bested by the 8-12 road record of Toronto, and the online sportsbooks that have listed the Blue Jays as small favorites don’t think that trend is going to reverse itself today.  We’ll take a look at this game from all angles and then let you know the MLB best bet for Friday that will hopefully make our readers a little bit wealthier.

Perhaps part of the reason why the Blue Jays are road favorites today has to do with the fact that they’ve defeated the Twins in 22 of the last 29 head-to-head clashes.  Toronto took 2 of 3 this season and has actually won in 6 of the last 8 in Minnesota.  Injuries will play an important part in handicapping this game, and Toronto designated hitter Adam Lind is questionable with a back injury while Minnesota is dealing with injuries to left fielder Delmon Young, designated hitter Jim Thome, left fielder Jason Repko, catcher Joe Mauer, and shortstop Tsuyoshi Nishioka; all of whom are expected to miss today’s game.

Minnesota will look to right-hander Carl Pavano (2-4, 1.45 WHIP, 6.64 ERA) to turn their season around, and the veteran starter has actually pitched very well at home despite being rocked in nearly every road start this year.  Pavano got hit hard at Toronto earlier this season but also put in 7 solid innings last year in a home start against the Blue Jays.  Toronto bats just .240 on the road and is only hitting at a .231 clip over their last 10 games, which leads me to believe that Pavano is going to have a strong, albeit not dominating, start.

Toronto will counter Pavano with left-hander Ricky Romero (2-4, 1.28 WHIP, 4.04 ERA).  Romero is coming off his worst start of the year after dealing with an oblique injury in the days leading up to the game, and it will be interesting to see if he gets back to dominating today.  He went 6+ strong innings against the Twins earlier this year and has pitched well in all 4 of his career starts against Minnesota.  The Twins’ offense is so dinged up that they are only hitting .213 over their last 10 games, but it is worth noting that they have put up a .255 average against lefties during that time frame.

Although Minnesota makes a decent bet, we are going to go with the total as our MLB best bet for Friday.  Pavano and Romero are both expected to throw quality innings tonight and neither bullpen scares me to the point of coming close to not making this wager.  Online sportsbooks have the total at either 7.5 or 8 runs, and I expect the runs scored to be much lower.  Look for a pitching-dominated game that could go either way in this pitcher-friendly stadium.

Blue Jays 2

Twins 3