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Baseball betting, Interleague style tonight. As someone who had a wager on the Cincinnati Reds yesterday as they managed to blow an 8-0 lead to the Atlanta Braves, losing in the bottom of the 9th as Francisco Cordero served up the grand slam ball to .167 hitting Brooks Conrad I’m doing well to even be here today. It did make the Toronto Blue Jays 9th inning collapse against the Seattle Mariners easier to swallow at least. That’s baseball betting, however, and you’ve just got to shake off nasty beats like that and keep on going. Today instead of a baseball dog we’ve got a surfing dog and a Jack Russell Terrier no less. You may think he’s cute and all but he’s one of a crew of ‘locals only’ surf terriers at Sunset Cliffs that’ll beat down a dog from the valley without hesitation if he should try to take their spot.

SAN DIEGO PADRES VS. SEATTLE MARINERS:

You’re probably asking yourself right now ‘how are the last place in the AL West Seattle Mariners a -165 or -170 favorite against the first place in the NL West San Diego Padres?’.  And that’s basically the handicap of tonight’s game.  The reason they’re favored and by that much, of course, is the considerable talent and rep of Mariners’ starter Cliff Lee.   He’s the 2008 Cy Young Award winner, after all, and he’s been solid this year with a 2.08 ERA.  The problem with this picture is that he can’t win the game on his own no matter how well he pitches and the rest of the Mariners’ team is just awful.  Despite Lee’s 2.08 ERA, the Mariners have lost 3 of his 4 starts this year.

San Diego would be the right side based on this fact alone, but they offer considerable additional upside.  25 year old southpaw Wade Leblanc gets the start for the Padres tonight and while he may not have Lee’s reputation or a Cy Young award there’s one thing he does have–a better ERA and W/L record this year.  San Diego has won 5 of his 6 starts on the season and he checks in with a tidy 1.54 ERA.  He should have a great night tonight against a Seattle team that is scoring only 2.7 runs per game against lefties while posting a 4-8 -5.4 unit record against opposing southpaws.

So if you’re betting on Seattle in this game, you’re paying for the Cliff Lee ‘brand name’.  The underdog is a much better all around team, with a winning record on the road and a starting pitcher with better YTD numbers.  For a baseball handicapper, there’s nothing better than getting the better team at a decent underdog price and that’s exactly what we’re doing here.

PLAY SAN DIEGO (LEBLANC) +155 OVER SEATTLE (LEE)