So we’ve got very little to bet on for Friday *except* baseball.  There are two Arena Football games on the board but that’s it.  This weekend should be a good one, however, as the NHL and NBA playoffs continue, plus we’ve got NASCAR and MMA.  We’ll also have full coverage as those majestic thoroughbred horses return to action–and, no, I’m not talking about the WNBA which kicks off their season on Saturday night (of course if you’re one of the hundreds of people that watches the WNBA you already know that).  The second leg of the Triple Crown, The Preakness Stakes, goes Saturday from Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course.

Anyway, here’s one baseball betting position for Friday and we’ll have another one later tonight/early tomorrow.  I’ll be handicapping the Preakness tonight and we’ll have our analysis and selections tomorrow.  We’ve had a lot of great dogs since we started the ‘baseball dogs’ format for the pictures accompanying our baseball plays, but this little Pomeranian in a Tim Lincecum jersey may be the best–I’ve found some other pictures and they’re hilarious, particularly since the jersey says ‘Lincepom’ on the back.

HOUSTON ASTROS VS. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS:

Man, this Houston team is tough to figure out.  They’re still in last place in the NL Central and have the worst record in the league.  They’ve also gone through stretches where they’ve been nearly unbeatable.  They started this season losing eight straight games, then won 8 of 10.  They then lost 8 more in a row and 11 of 12, but have most recently won 4 straight including a three game road sweep of Central leading St. Louis.  The Astros pitching didn’t look great in the first two games, but their bats came alive.  In the series finale, Bud Norris shut down the Cards allowing 6 hits and 1 ER over 8 innings.

All of this does serve to give us a decent price as Houston heads West to take on the San Francisco Giants.  Giants were just swept by the San Diego Padres and needs to get some wins under their belt to get back in the NL West race.  Todd Wellmeyer isn’t the ace of the brutally talented Giants staff, but he’s going to be facing a Houston offense that has made a number of pitchers look like Cy Young candidates this season.  Astros averaging 3.0 runs per game with a .230 batting average–they’ve scored fewer runs than any team in baseball and are tied with the White Sox for the lowest batting average in the majors.

We’re not going to overreact to the fact that the Giants were just swept by an underrated San Diego team, or Houston’s sweep of St. Louis.  We’ll take the better team.

PLAY SAN FRANCISCO (WELLEMEYER) -144 OVER HOUSTON ASTROS (PAULINO)