Baseball Betting Preview: Minnesota Twins at New York Yankees

Added on Apr 06, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Yankee Stadium will host what could be a preview of a playoff matchup between the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins. Not much difference in terms of the records of these teams in the early going–Minnesota has lost 3 of their first 5 while the Yankees have won 3 of their first 5.

Minnesota Twins (Pavano) at New York Yankees (Garcia)
April 6, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

The biggest concern about the New York Yankees heading into this season was their starting pitching which is qualitatively inferior to the other areas of the team. That fact makes a sound handicapping concept even more viable here–as one of the biggest ‘public’ teams in all of sports the Yankees are almost always overvalued and particularly at home. The Yankees did win four of six meetings from Minnesota last year and managed to get a win in the opener of this series.

That notwithstanding, the Twins have a huge edge in pitching here with veteran Carl Pavano. Pavano got pounded in his first start of the season, but we look for him to have a strong b0unce back performance here. The Yankees will counter with 5th starter Freddy Garcia, who has yet to pitch this year. Garcia was 12-6 with a 4.64 ERA for the Chicago White Sox in 2010. Even at his best he’s the sort of pitcher who is valued for his ability to ‘eat innings’ and isn’t a dominating pitcher.

The Twins weren’t a great road team in 2010 though they did manage to eke out a winning record going 41-40. Ultimately, however, this is as much of an effort to go against a Yankees team that is invariably overpriced than anything else. The underdog Twins have the better starting pitcher and we’re not really deterred by the Yankees 5-2 edge in games played this year and last. This is also a potential ‘lookahead’ spot for the Bronx Bombers as they’ve got a weekend series at Fenway Park against the hated Boston Red Sox on deck and they’ll no doubt want to add to their rivals early season struggles. We’ll take an underdog price with a proven veteran starter on a team that may not be getting the respect they deserve in this matchup.

Bet Minnesota Twins (Pavano) +148 over New York Yankees (Garcia)