MLB Betting Picks: Tampa Bay Rays at Seattle Mariners

Added on Aug 13, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

The Tampa Bay Rays have gone on a nice run over the past few weeks and are now up to second place in the AL East and within striking distance of the first place Yankees. The Rays will enter this game just five games back and could be poised to make up even more ground as the Yankees host the tough Texas Rangers in an early week series. The Seattle Mariners have shown some scrap of late but are still mired in last place in the AL West a whopping 15.5 games behind first place Texas.

Tampa Bay Rays at Seattle Mariners
August 13, 2012 7:10 PM Pacific

The Mariners have shown some spunk post All Star break and are a team that we’ve used successfully in certain situations. This is not one of them, however. Seattle has lost money at home this season (25-29 -6.1 units) and more problematically their offense at Safeco Field has been nonexistent. The Mariners are hitting .208 and averaging just 3.1 runs per game in their home park. The Rays aren’t exactly an offensive juggernaut either but are a veritable ‘Murderer’s Row’ compared to the sputtering Seattle batters.

Tampa Bay has been a very solid investment on the road this season–the Rays are 30-25 +8 units and have done good work against right handed pitching as well. Against right handers, Tampa is 46-32 +7.4 units on the season. Blake Beavan has shown some decent form of late, but we don’t expect him to fare especially well against a tenacious Rays attack. The Rays are in very good form as a team at the moment, having won 6 games and 9 of their last 11. They travel to Anaheim for a tough battle against the Angels after this series so it’s crucial for them to take advantage of these games against a substandard Seattle team.

Tampa Bay starter Alex Cobb is a very promising young pitcher who has looked excellent in his most recent starts. In his past two assignments Cobb has pitched a total of 14 innings (7 innings per game) and allowed only one earned run in each outing. Even more impressive is his ratio of 16 strikeouts against 1 walk in his last three games. We respect the way that Seattle has continued to compete late in the season but we’ll gladly back the better team and pitcher–both in excellent form at the moment.

Bet Tampa Bay Rays (Cobb) -135 over Seattle Mariners (Beavan)