MLB Baseball
2012-06-06 - Toronto Blue Jays at Chicago White Sox
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
United States: Major League Baseball
Wednesday 6 June 2012 - First Pitch 8:10pm ET
1:10am (British Standard Time)
Preview
The Toronto Blue Jays (29-26) will look to complete a series win over the Chicago White Sox (31-24) after taking game 1 yesterday. Both teams are amongst the leading charges of their respective Divisions with Toronto trailing Tampa Bay by 2 games, and Chicago leading Cleveland by 1.5 games.
Chicago have been one of the form teams in the Major Leagues with the defeat yesterday being just the third they have suffered in their last 17 overall. Paul Konerko missed the game yesterday and will look to return tonight and give the team a boost having being absent for the last couple of games.
John Danks is definitely ruled out tonight and that means Jose Quintana will continue in the starting line up as the pitcher. Quintana is 1-0 this season with a 1.69 ERA although his last outing was cut short when he was ejected from the game with Tampa Bay for throwing behind a batter in retaliation for some of his own batters being hit or being close to being hit.
In his first start of the season, Quintana gave up just 2 runs in 6 innings against the Cleveland Indians and he has also helped in relief since then. This will be the first time he has faced the Toronto Blue Jays and the red hot Colby Rasmus.
Toronto will be hoping the inconsistent Brandon Morrow brings his good side out to pitch tonight if they are to complete the series win. Morrow is 6-3 this season with a 3.28 ERA, but his last four starts have shown that he has been either very good or very bad; he gave up 6 runs to Tampa Bay and Texas, but also pitched a 3 hit shutout against the New York Mets between those games and also struck out 8 batters in a 4-1 win over Baltimore last week.
Morrow is 0-1 with a 4.76 ERA against the White Sox in four starts against them. However, he has given up just 3 runs in the last 13 innings pitched against them, both coming last season.
Head to Head
This is only the second of their ten scheduled meetings this season with the Blue Jays taking the first game yesterday.
The loss last night means the Chicago White Sox are now just 2-5 in their last 7 games against Toronto overall.
Chicago have lost their last two home games against the Blue Jays and they are 5-11 in their last 16 at home against Toronto.
Prediction
The Chicago White Sox had been in fabulous form in the last few weeks, but they have come off the boil a little and they could have a bit of trouble getting back into this series if the good version of Brandon Morrow takes to the mound.
Morrow does represent the better of the two pitchers expected to start tonight and my only concern is that the Blue Jays have not seen Jose Quintana before.
However, both batting line ups have been in decent nick and I expect the Blue Jays to get their runs on the board. If Morrow pitches as he has in his last two starts against Chicago, I think the Blue Jays can take the series as the slight favourite in this game.
The Pick :
Chicago White Sox 3-4 Toronto Blue Jays
FIXED ODDS BETTING TIP :
I'll back the Toronto Blue Jays @ 1.85
