Our Wednesday night selection is on the Chicago White Sox and Seattle Mariners going over the total at Safeco Field.
Call it the "Jinx of Perfection." Since Chicago's ace Mark Buehrle pitched the 18th perfect game in Major League history on July 23, the veteran southpaw has gone 0-3 with an 8.35 ERA and he also lost back-to-back home starts for the first time since September of 2006.
In a move that the Sox hope will produce some runs and boost their offensive output, Chicago claimed Alex Rios off of waivers from the Blue Jays and, in doing so, will assume his huge contract. But the Sox front office thinks this waiver claim is not only worth the money it will have to spend, but necessary if they are to keep pace with the higher-powered offense of the Tigers.
Like Buehrle, Seattle's righthander Felix Hernandez had been cruising along in June and July but has all of the sudden run into some trouble in his last three starts, going 1-1 with a 5.79 ERA and a 1.77 WHIP over 18 2/3 innings. In two August starts, Hernandez – who normally has excellent control – walked 10 batters in 13 innings and he was very lucky to get through his last start against Tampa Bay only surrendering three earned runs in six sub-par innings of work. Perhaps the high innings and pitch counts (he threw 113 pitches in the Tampa game) are finally starting to catch up to King Felix.
Heading into tonight, the Over is 7-3 in the last 10 meetings of these two clubs. Take the Over.
Ah, well they're all free plays to me, even note that if you follow the link back to the front page site. McMordie and Jimmy the Moose are regular contributors and if I see them not posted here already after I've placed them on our front page, I'll just link those write-ups into here.
Al McMordie Aug 12th
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