Thursday, June 14th

7:10 Philadelphia @ Minnesota

As I said earlier in the week I knew there some matchups later in the week that could be huge for us and this is one of those matchups.  In the first game in the series we backed Philadelphia and they were not able to come out on top.  They gave up way too many runs to be able to dig themselves out of an early hole.  Yesterday we saw Minnesota return the favor with P.J. Walters not able to record an out leading to a 6 run first inning.  Minnesota tried to battle back and ended up only losing the game by one.

Philadelphia will have Joe Blanton to the mound tonight who has a 5 – 6 record and a 5.40 ERA.  The last five games have been atrocious for him letting up 29 runs in only 26 1/3 innings of work and has given up at least 5 runs in each of those games.  The last time he has had a quality start was back on May 14^th when he was at home against the struggling Astros where he only gave up one run.  Philadelphia as a whole has not been faring well either currently they are on a 3 – 9 slide in June. 

Scott Diamond will be pitching tonight for the Minnesota Twins.  He has had a good year so far with a 5 – 1 record and a 1.61 ERA.  In his last two starts he has not given up an earned run.  In fact, the most runs he has given up is 3 runs which happened on two occasions against Milwaukee and Oakland.  Minnesota has also been hot as of late with a 7 – 4 record and June and a 10 -4 run dating back to May 28^th.

Minnesota should be able to win the series tonight with a dominating win.  The bats have been hot for them and against a struggling pitcher should become disastrous for the Phillies.  Expect Scott Diamond to have another good outing.  He will probably not be able to keep his earned runs steak alive in the game, but will pitch well enough for us to cruise to an easy victory.  This game will be a rebuttal game for Diamond Crusher after a tough start to the week so far.  Currently, we are on a 0 – 4 streak and most of the games have not been close, but expect us to get an early jump on what should be a great weekend.

Projected score: Philadelphia 4 – Minnesota 9

Pick: Moneyball Minnesota (-131)