Tiny Nick's Gambling Picks 08/12

Locks

MLB (0.75 Unit) Chicago Cubs/Toronto Blue Jays Over 9 (-110; Odds via Caesars): 6:07 PM CT on TBS

For years after the Twins traded Jose Berrios to Toronto, he was worlds better at home than on the road. That has flipped a little this season with elevated ERA, WHIP, and opponent on-base average numbers in home games, and the scary Cubs offense coming to town isn’t going to help. Chicago is a top-5 offense just about any way you slice it against righties, so expect Berrios to give up some production here.

But Toronto is the offense to truly lean on for getting over this total, as they should crush Ben Brown tonight. The Cubs righty is very prone to blowup games, has a 6.29 ERA on the road, and you can argue that the Jays, who lead MLB in batting average against righties, is even better against them than the Cubs. These are also two of the best over teams in baseball, with Toronto having the best over record both overall and at home, so I’m seeing runs here tonight.

MLB (0.5 Unit) Boston Red Sox/Houston Astros Over 8.5 (-110; Odds via Caesars): 7:10 PM CT on SCHN

Both of these teams have been scoring a lot of runs lately, and I think it continues here. Last night’s 13-run affair came with a Cy Young candidate on the mound for Boston, and a very solid starter going for Houston as well, so tonight’s matchup of much lesser pitchers has me expecting plenty of scoring again.

Dustin May for Boston and Spencer Arrighetti for Houston don’t have a lot of data for their respective teams this season, but neither is anything special. The Red Sox and Astros are not elite against righties, but solid enough for these two to struggles tonight, especially with how well both teams have been hitting. Against this moderate of a total with all the potential pop in these lineups, expect enough scoring to hit the over tonight.

WNBA (0.75 Unit) Dallas Wings/Indiana Fever Over 171.5 (-110; Odds via BetMGM): 6:30 PM CT on ESPN

Unfortunately there’s still no Caitlin Clark for this game tonight, but as we’ve seen time and again, that doesn’t truly seem to matter for the Fever. It shouldn’t matter much against this Dallas defense that’s still one of the worst in the league, and has to deal with an offense that plays at probably the second-fastest tempo in the WNBA.

That’s allowed Indiana to average 94.7 PPG in the three meetings with Dallas this season, only one of which Clark played in. The Fever also now have a game under their belt to figure out how to play without Sydney Colson or Aari McDonald, and they torched Chicago without them. Personnel issues have not put any fear into the sharp money that kept driving this total up from the open, and I think it’s still worth playing at this number.

WNBA (0.75 Unit) NY Liberty @ LA Sparks +4 (-110; Odds via Caesars): 9:00 PM CT on NBA TV

The Liberty are a tripod built on Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and Jonquel Jones, so when you remove one leg of the tripod, everything falls over. They struggled without Jones for a long time, now they’re struggling without Stewart, but name brand recognition keeps forcing spreads like this one. The Liberty are 3-5 in their past 8 games, with those wins coming against the teams with the worst records in the league.

So having to face a surging Sparks team, Saturday’s game notwithstanding, will be difficult for them. LA has already proven that their red-hot offense can torch New York’s defense without Stewart, and that was before Cameron Brink returned. So I’ll gladly take the points here and wouldn’t be mad at anyone for sprinkling the moneyline.

Degenerates

No degenerates today.

Past 7 days Tiny Tracker: 18-15 (+1.85 Units) – Recommend: Tail With Caution

Tiny Nick has been writing betting picks for Zone Coverage since 2020. Every day he will offer his Locks and Degenerate picks. Locks are what he’s most confident in, while Degenerates are entertaining but riskier picks.