[InTheHole]

Cajun Sports
Date/Time: Tuesday April 21 / 10:15PM EST
Sport/Type: MLB / Side
Game: San Diego Padres @ San Francisco Giants

2* San Diego Padres -120


AT&T Park will be the site of tonights National League battle between the host San Francisco Giants and the visiting San Diego Padres. The Padres are 9-4 to the start the 2009 campaign and have posted a record of 4-2 on their current road swing with Mondays game against Philly postponed. They led that four-game series 2 to 1 and were in position for their second series win in three years in Philadelphia, but Monday's finale was called because of rain. San Diego will send ace right-hander Jake Peavy to the bump on Tuesday with his record of 2-1 and an ERA of 3.98. Peavy has already faced this Giants team once this season back on April 11th he struck out ten and came within two outs of a complete game in a 6 to 3 home win. Peavy has had success when he takes the bump versus the Giants with a career mark of 12-8 and an ERA of 3.30 in 24 starts. His last two trips to the Bay were back in 07 and he went 2-0 with an ERA of 1.38. San Francisco has struggled out of the gate with a record of 4-8 on the season which included losing all three in a road series versus the Padres back on April 10-12. The one good sign for the Giants is they have won four straight at home versus San Diego but they will send Matt Cain to the hill and he has not had much success after going 3-0 with a 1.64 ERA in his first five starts against the Padres. He has failed to beat them since September 2006. In 10 starts after that, Cain is 0-5 with a 3.59 ERA and has received only 16 runs of support. A check of the database shows Cain struggles in each of these situations, against the money line when playing against a team with a winning record he is 9-27 the last 3 seasons, 2-14 against the money line vs. teams outscoring opponents by 0.5 or more runs per game on the season, 7-21 against the money line as an underdog of +100 to +150 the last 3 seasons, 9-26 against the money line in the first half of the season the last 3 seasons and 8-22 against the money line against division opponents over the last 3 seasons. Finally we have a MLB system that tells us to Play AGAINST any MLB (NL) team with an on base percentage .310 or worse on the season, after scoring 2 runs or less in 4 straight games, 46-16 W/L +28.4 Units since 1997. With the pitching edge and the overall better team we will back the visitor here as the Padres put an end to that four-game road losing streak to the Giants.

Graded Selection: 2* San Diego Padres 4 San Francisco Giants 3