The last weekend before the Trade Deadline gets underway today with a lot of really good pitching matchups and some exorbitant AL East favorite prices. We’re seeing both the Yankees and the Blue Jays as nearly $4 favorites with Gerrit Cole against the Royals and Alek Manoah against the Tigers. It’s fair to say that those games will not be on my card for today.
Speaking of my card, it’s been a rough few days and it looks like July will be the first month in the red. The ups and downs of the MLB season have been on full display and if this is your first time betting baseball on a daily basis, you’re getting a crash course in the roller coaster ride that it can be. I’ll be looking to get off the ride as football season gets underway, as September has historically been a bad baseball month for me for a variety of reasons, but we’ll see how things play out in August.
Marlins/Reds: The Marlins battled to a 7-6 win, but the big story here was that Daniel Castano took a 102 mph rocket off of his head and left the game after just 23 pitches. All tests seem encouraging, so hopefully he’ll be back soon. The Reds bullpen blew this one in the ninth with a ghastly outing from Hunter Strickland, but Graham Ashcraft allowed 12 hard-hit balls in 6.2 innings, yet somehow only one run.