FADE THE DUKE, BACK EL DUQUE

Washington hits lefties at .271 and the Pirates have struggled to get any offense, themselves hitting poorly against lefties. O’Conner has allowed 1 ER in 12 Innings. Pittsburgh is as bad on the road as the Nationals are at home but somebody has to win. Trends also say to play on home dogs when the total is 7.5. Orlando Hernadez can get hit pretty hard but has done well on the road this season and has had good success against Reds Hitters. Like the Pirates, the Reds have struggled recently scoring runs. Other notes from around the American Leauge: -Yankees are 10-0 during the day. -Toronto is 2-9 during the day- take the Angels and Lackey. Detroit vs Minnesota… both teams struggle versus lefties and everybody struggles against Johan Santana… This is an under play. Also, Detroit’s bullpen has an ERA of 3.12 while the Twins have a very respectable 4.15. -Cleveland hits .290 versus lefties, Seattle .210. -The White Sox could score all of the 8.5 over/under on their own. From around the National Leauge: Angel Guzman could only go 5.2 and 5 innings versus the Pirates and Marlins. He gets another shot at a weak hitting team in the Padres. Righties are hitting .385 against Guzman. Woody Williams hasn’t gotten yet- that is the good news. Some Cubs have had decent success against him over the years including Michael Barrett (6-10) who seemingly has a good history against every opposing pitcher. Also Juan Pierre and Nievi Perez but those guys don’t do the real damage so even if they get on base there isn’t anybody to drive them in. The Cubs over the last seven games have scored 5 runs… total. Losing 16-2, 9-0, winning 2-1 and then losing 8-0, 5-1 and 6-0 and 1-0. That’s impressive! Cubs are tied 1-1 currently in the 8th and have tied the over/under that I would have placed on their run total tonight. Three games ago the only Cub run was scored on an RBI BB with Greg Maddux at the plate. So what are the odds that they can put more than three runs on the board tomorrow? Jon Lieber has been getting hit hard. He has had huge success against Barry Bonds over his career as barry is 6-35 or something. That would scare me. You don’t want to back any pitcher who thinks he can pitch to Barry Bonds, especially with Alou not there behind him. On the other end Bobby Abreu is 7-18 vs. Matt Morris. Lima was 1-11 on the road last year with an equally impressive ERA. He is making his first start of the year. Smoltz had a good outing last week versus the Mets. So gotta go with the Braves and the over. Randy Marsh is behind the plate and is 5-0 over/under this year. Last year he was 20-14-1 and in 2004 he was 17-9-1. Sportsbooks are still putting up gaudy over/under numbers for games at Coors field. Early lines are posted at 11 for the Astros at Colorado. Colorado won tonight 5-0 and have had six consecutive home games under the 11 total runs. - nutlow