Baseball betting for Wednesday night takes us to the Pacific Northwest where the Toronto Blue Jays will visit the Jet City to play the Seattle Mariners.  Blue Jays have played well so far this season at 24-17.  Their biggest problem is that they’re in the American League East which means that even with that solid record they’re 5 games out of first place since the Yankees and Rays are outplaying everyone in Major League Baseball.  Seattle on the other hand is a mess at 14-25.  The highlight of their year so far has been the ‘scandal’ over Ken Griffey Jr. knockin’ back some zzzz’s in the clubhouse.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS VS. SEATTLE MARINERS:

Actually, the Mariners have had a few bright spots this season and one has been the solid performance of starting pitcher Doug Fister.  Fister has the sort of makeup that’ll keep him in the Majors for years–he may not win a Cy Young Award, but he’ll be a great 3rd or 4th option in a quality rotation.  His stuff isn’t overpowering, but he’s a crafty pitcher.  At this point, he reminds me of a ‘poor man’s’ Greg Maddux.  On the year, Fister has a 3-1 record with an era of a buck seventy two.  Considering the fact that his team is so bad that’s pretty impressive.  At home he’s 2-0 with a 1.20 ERA.  He’s pretty much the only reason that Seattle is favored here.

The problem is that as much as we like Fister, the Mariners have no business being favored over anyone at this point.  He does his job, but his team is so lousy–particularly on offense–that even when he pitches his ass off it doesn’t guarantee a win.  The Mariners are 3-4 in his starts this season, including 2-2 at home.  And try and figure out how this works–Fister has allowed 4 ER total in his last three starts for an ERA during that span of 1.80 and somehow the Mariners have lost two of those games.

Interestingly, the two games the Mariners’ lost in that span were against left handed pitching and they’re facing a southpaw today in Brett Cecil.  Cecil has been up and down this year, but its funny how much easier the game becomes when your team can actually hit the ball–for example, Cecil had by all accounts an awful outing in his last start giving up 8 ER to Texas.  His teammates bailed him out with an offensive onslaught, and the Jays ended up winning by the football like score of 16-10.  That bad outing was very likely just that–a rough day at the office against a team that can bang.  On May 3 against Cleveland, Cecil pitched 8 innings of 1 hit baseball with 10 k’s.

Seattle is the kind of team that can make a decent pitcher look like a Cy Young candidate.  M’s averaging a paltry 2.7 runs per against LHP and are 3-7 -5.2 units on the year against southpaws.  Toronto has been excellent away from home, with a 13-6 record.  As much as we like Fister he’s not the sort of pitcher that can win a game on his own.  We’ll take the better team as an underdog.

PLAY TORONTO +115 OVER SEATTLE