Monday MLB Best Bet: White Sox vs. Rangers

Written by Jake Thompson
Monday, 23 May 2011 13:16

The clash between the White Sox and Rangers makes for a great MLB best bet for Monday.

Close to 65% of tracked MLB bettors are taking the home-team Texas Rangers (24-23) as fairly large-sized betting favorites, and our best bet selection will let you know if they’ll be able to get by the visiting Chicago White Sox (22-26).  Texas has been tough to beat at home, but they’ve also lost 4 of the last 6 head-to-head meetings against this Chicago squad.  Consistency has also been a problem for the Rangers as they’ve dropped 2 of their last 10 games this season when coming off of a win; a trend that presents itself once again tonight after Texas upset the Philadelphia Phillies last night.

The great news for Texas fans is that left fielder Josh Hamilton (shoulder) and right fielder Nelson Cruz (quadricep) are ready to return from stints on the disabled list.  Both guys pack a ton of power and both are coming off of rehab games in which they hit home runs.  Cruz and Hamilton make this Texas lineup quite scary, and I’d expect the Rangers to score plenty of runs as long as both can stay healthy.

Texas has hit just .225 over their last 10 games and will surely welcome the two big sluggers back into the starting lineup.  The White Sox will throw out left-hander John Danks (0-6, 1.46 WHIP, 4.32 ERA), and the south paw might be in for a bad start with the Rangers hitting .304 against lefties at home this season.  Danks has ran into problems in Texas before, and will surely have a tougher time getting outs than in his start against the Rangers last week in which he gave up just 2 earned runs over 6.1 innings.

Reliever-turned-starter Alexi Ogando (4-0, 0.87 WHIP, 2.13 ERA) will oppose Danks, and the right-hander has been nothing short of amazing after making the move out of the bullpen right before this season started.  The White Sox do have some sluggers that can take advantage of the small park dimensions, but Ogando puts so few guys on base that he can generally deal with a home run or two going against him.  I like the fact that the White Sox have never seen this guy pitch, but I’m also a little concerned with the fact that he threw 116 pitches last time out (a career high).

With Ogando pitching well, the Rangers getting their best hitters back, Texas having the superior bullpen, and the White Sox potentially being without right fielder Carlos Quentin (knee), I think the Monday MLB best bet has to be on the Rangers.  I’m not a huge fan of paying these big prices but everything is setting up for a Texas win.

White Sox 3

Rangers 6