Tiny Nick’s Gambling Picks: 6/03

Locks

MLB (0.5 Unit) SF Giants -1.5 @ Miami Marlins (+115): 5:40 PM CT on Bally Sports FL

I’ve had a pretty good feel for the Giants so far this season, and this looks like a good spot for them to get back on track. Getting shut out yesterday by one of Miami’s best pitchers should not dissuade you from backing San Fran here. Elieser Hernandez goes for the Marlins tonight and the Fish have been brutal with him on the mound, losing the last 5 of his starts.

The Giants should be able to use their large number of left-handed bats to take advantage of Hernandez’s sky-high .958 OPS to lefties. That will allow them to slug their way to the win tonight, giving their own starter, Alex Cobb, enough run support to get the job done. While Cobb has his own issues, particularly on the road, the Marlins have only two lefties in their lineup to take advantage of his biggest weakness. I see that being enough for the Giants as the far-superior team overall to secure a comfortable win here.

Bonus Bet (0.75 Unit): Giants/Marlins Over 8 (-110)

I mentioned both of these starters are having issues, right? Both have some excessively high batting average allowed, OPS, and ERA numbers this season that has led to high-scoring games. In Hernandez and Cobb’s 17 combined starts this season, their teams are 12-3-2 over this total. Ideally, the Giants will do most of the work in getting this game over since the handicap is they’ll need to slug their way to a win. But I see this one getting over a low total regardless.

MLB (0.75 Unit) Toronto Blue Jays Team Total Over 5.5 (-110): 6:07 PM CT on Bally Sports North

Yikes, Twins, I love you but Chi Chi Gonzalez is not the answer here. Especially not against a team as red-hot as Toronto has become. The Blue Jays have finally started to realize their offensive potential after a couple months of surprising futility. It’s fueled an 8-game winning streak where they’ve cleared this total 7 times while averaging 7 runs per game.

And the last time we saw Chi Chi Gonzalez late last season, he was getting bullpen work for the Rockies because even they couldn’t withstand his blowup performances as a starter. I just don’t see how Gonzalez and a struggling bullpen hold Toronto under this total, so let’s hope the Twins can win a slugfest.

MLB (0.5 Unit) Boston Red Sox/Oakland A’s Over 7 (-110): 8:40 PM CT on NBCS-CA

The crumbling Oakland Coliseum is known as a pitcher’s park, and the cool Bay Area weather doesn’t help, but this total is just too low. This is mostly a fade of A’s starter James Kaprielian though, who has an awful 7.71 home ERA in that supposed pitcher’s park. He has also seen just one of his starts this season go under tonight’s total and has yet to face an offense as potent as Boston’s.

The Red Sox can be hot-and-cold offensively, but the bottom line is they’re 30-17-4 over tonight’s total on the season, and 18-4 over it in their past 22 games. They also tend to get into higher-scoring affairs when Nathan Eovaldi takes the mound, going 7-3 over this total in his starts this season. With a breeze blowing out to right for tonight’s game as well, I see the over trends continuing for these teams and pitchers on such a low number.

Degenerates

MLB Arizona Diamondbacks ML @ Pittsburgh Pirates (-115): 6:05 PM CT on SportsNet PT

Living in Arizona, maybe I’m just a little too close to this Diamondbacks team, but they’ve been impressively beating expectations all season. To still be around .500 at this point in perhaps the toughest division in baseball says a lot, but their market perception is still down. I also just think the market is giving a little too much love to Pittsburgh. Somehow the Pirates have the Dodgers figured out, but they’re still a very bad team that’s in the business of losing. I’d give a definitive starting pitching edge to Arizona and Merrill Kelly here, and that has me backing them at basically a pick-em price tonight.

Tiny Nick is 747-620 ATS (+79.6 Units) on his Locks since joining Zone Coverage. 

Every day he will offer his Locks and Degenerate picks. Locks are the games he’s confident in. Degenerates are entertaining but riskier picks.