Tampa Bay Rays vs. Kansas City Royals
MLB Baseball Pick: Tampa Bay Rays -102 odds (July 22nd 2011)
Visit Touthouse.com for more expert MLB baseball picks from Freddy Wills

Wade Davis -102 (2* FREE PLAY) This line looks a little too good to me, as the Rays have the pitching advantage big time with Davis on the mound who has compiled a 2.84 ERA over his last three starts vs. Luke Hochevar who has a 7.20 ERA over his last 3, but oddsmakers see a struggling Rays line up averaging less than 3 runs per game. Well that’s a bit skewed as the Rays have had to face CC Sabathia twice and Josh Becket once in their last 10 games and they only managed 2 runs in those three games. They have roughed up Luke Hochevar in their career (more on this in a minute) and Wade Davis has been superb against the Royals and in the month of July as he has a 4-1 record in 7 starts with a 3.22 ERA. The Royals have just a .121 average in 33 AB and a .437 OPS while Davis has given up just 6 hits over 14 innings vs. the Royals who are also scoring less than 3 runs per game over their last 10 games.

Luke Hochevar has had some solid starts, but overall he’s in a mismatch situation. He’s got a 7.20 ERA through 3 starts in July this month and over 2008-2010 he made 10 starts in July and went 4-4 with a 6.63 ERA. He’s also struggled at home with a 5.11 ERA and at night 5.31 ERA. In 4 starts vs. the Rays he’s 0-4 with a 10.00 ERA and 1.94 WHIP over 18 innings pitched. Rays have a .897 OPS combined vs. him. I like the Rays chances this would be a play of the day candidate if the line did not look just a little too weird for me I’d expect the Rays in the -120 to -140 range, but here we have them as basically under dogs. That should change by the time this game kicks off on Friday.