MLB Online Betting Picks – Oakland And Toronto Emerge In Early May
The online betting calculus is regularly murky when it comes to baseball played in the first week of May. The Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays will try to provide some clarity.
American League Weekend Betting Picks:
Oakland Athletics @ Kansas City Royals – Saturday, May 7 – 7:10 PM ET
The rationale for picking a selected baseball game on the first weekend of May might not be as flimsy as the rationale for picking an individual baseball battle on the second weekend of April, but it’s still a fairly close comparison. Let’s be reminded that the New York Yankees have struggled mightily in the first month and a half of recent seasons before turning on the afterburners on or near Memorial Day. One would also do well to realize that the 2007 Colorado Rockies did absolutely nothing of value for the first five months of that year’s regular season, only to go on a remarkable winning binge in September that carried into October… all the way to the World Series against the Boston Red Sox, when the magic finally stopped for the boys from the Rocky Mountains. The point is clear to fans and sports betting gurus as well: Early-May baseball is still a minefield, a very uncertain part of the season in which teams are still working out the kinks or, by contrast, living on the volatility of April baseball before a harsh reality sets in during the dog days of summer. Can you fully trust teams at this stage of the season, for better or worse? Not really. This means you have to pick your spots.Enter the Kansas City Royals.
If there’s a team that MLB baseball betting experts can feel safe in betting against, it’s the Royals, who have made virtually no noise in this sport ever since they won their only World Series championship in 1985. The Royals have languished at the bottom of the American League throughout this decade and have not seriously contended for a division championship or wild-card spot in a long time. When Kansas City takes the field at Kauffman Stadium this Saturday evening against the Oakland Athletics, it will trot out veteran pitcher Luke Hochevar, who sports a tired and worn 5.48 earned-run average, typical of a team with few great options on its pitching staff. Hochevar will go up against Oakland starter Brandon McCarthy, who sports a 3.05 earned-run average and looks every bit like one of the golden arms of a promising young pitching rotation for the A’s. This is a game in which one can at least feel somewhat confident. Go with Oakland on the road.
Oakland Kansas City Betting Pick: Oakland
Game Number Two:
Detroit Tigers @ Toronto Blue Jays – Sunday, May 8 – 1:07 PM ET
In many ways, the same issue betting calculus mentioned above is what applies in this game, only to a less-pronounced degree. The Detroit Tigers have been more successful than the Kansas City Royals over the years, but after falling short in the 2009 one-game American League Central Division playoff against the Minnesota Twins, the Tigers have lost a lot of starch. In this Sunday matinee against the Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit will be sending Brad Penny to the hill. Penny is very possibly over that hill; the former Los Angeles Dodger and Florida Marlin (and Boston Red Sock, and St. Louis Cardinal, and San Francisco Giant… get the picture?) has a 5.23 earned-run average. Against Jose Bautista and the rest of the Toronto lineup, Penny is likely in for a tough afternoon. Pick Toronto, because Detroit’s pitching just doesn’t figure to hold up in this particular contest.
Detroit Toronto Betting Pick: Toronto
