RAYS LOSING STREAK HITS FOUR GAMES

7/11/08

As we enter the final weekend before the break, we're going to start our baseball summer vacation, so this will be the last day for free plays until next Thursday. You can still check in at the Free Sports Monitor each day to check out the free picks and offers over the weekend. There's an important message at the end of this article about this years football key releases. If you're interested in these plays, please read it.

No big time series matchups to highlight heading into the break.  Arizona and Philly is an interesting series between a couple of division leaders, but let's not forget, Arizona is a .500 team and Philly is only a few games over .500. The Dodgers and Marlins has some juice to it, but like the series above, these are mediocre teams folks.

Only two games separate the Tigers and Twins in the AL Central so that series has some implications but perhaps the most interesting series of all involves a terrible team and a very good team and that would be the Indians and Rays. The Rays have now lost a season high 4 straight and look to keep from losing 5 straight for the first time all year. It's a huge series also, because no team wants to head into the all star break on a skid. Especially when you were the best team in baseball over the first half of the year. Baseball is as much mental as anything else. Having 4 or 5 days to sit their and stew about what's going wrong isn't going to help matters. The Rays need at least a split in Cleveland, where they haven't won in over 3 years.

Speaking of the Indians and Rays, I'm going to use that game as our last free play before the break. As you know, baseball is a game of streaks. Here we have one monster streak just having come to an end with the Indians snapping a 10 game skid. The Rays on the other hand are in the midst of what looks like it will be their longest losing streak season to date and at the worst possible time, before the break. This looks like a good spot for the Indians to take two in a row, as bad as they are, and as good as the Rays have been. The Indians send Lee to the hill tonight and he's been their shining star all year with an 11-2 record and a 2.43 era. Look for the Rays troubles to continue tonight in Cleveland.

What keeps this from being a regular play? I have a general rule that I apply across the board regardless of the sport. That is, "never ask a bad team to win for you". When you wager on a sporting event, you are basically handing your money over to the team you bet on for a couple of hours. You're entrusting this team with your hard earned money and telling them you have enough confidence in them to protect your money, to go win a game and get you some more. With so many opportunities all year long in whatever the sport may be, to invest with good teams, why take the chance of throwing your money away with a bunch of clowns? The Indians are clowns. This is a good spot for them, but we'll leave it as a free play.

Good Luck - Enjoy the All Star Break - If you're interested in the All Star game, check back as we'll have some coverage over the weekend. Football coverage starts very soon as well. We can't wait. Speaking of which, the Key Releases will go out to the email list first this year, before they appear on the website. If you're serious about playing these games, you'll should sign up for the email list. Many of these games move. There's lots of people playing these plays. Enough sharps that, at times, the lines can get away from you to where there's no more value. Since they can be released at anytime during the week, email is your best bet. You can sign up below.

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