Nick Parsons Available Picks

July, 02 2008 7:05pm EST
TOTAL: Over 10.5 (-115)
WIN for +1.74 unit(s)

Texas Rangers at New York Yankees

OVER rangers/yanks – Surprisingly the first two games of this series have totaled only 8 runs but look for this low-scoring trend to come to an abrupt halt on Wednesday in the series finale. Sidney Ponson gets a shot against his former team as the Yankees right-hander faces the Rangers. The end result of this is likely to be Ponson ‘overthrowing’ and getting crushed as he wants so badly to knock off his former team but he’ll be facing a solid Rangers lineup that certainly knows his tendencies. Even though Ponson had a solid first start for the Yankees there was more to it than what you see on the surface. The Mets had eight base runners against Ponson in the first three innings but failed to score! Then, after that, the Yankees offense starting pounding the ball and giving Ponson a lot of run support and the Mets appeared to “throw in the towel”. That allowed Ponson to have a strong finish to a start that he came very close to getting crushed in! That means we get line value here because what the casual observer sees is Ponson allowing just four walks and five hits in six shutout innings! Also note that Ponson is lucky in the way his whole season has played out thus far. He was 4-1 with the Rangers before coming to New York but note that opponents were hitting .307 against him. As you can see, he’s been far from dominant this season and his 8-2 career record against the Rangers is also deceiving as he’s been hit at a .286 clip by Texas bats and he’s compiled a 4.82 ERA against them. Look for Ponson to get roughed up but also note that the Yankees bats should again give him plenty of support like they did in Friday’s 9-0 win. The Yanks will be taking their cuts against the Rangers Luis Mendoza. The right-hander has been outstanding since he started coming out of the bullpen again but he struggled badly as a starting pitcher earlier this season. In his three starts this season, Mendoza allowed 18 hits and walked 7 and all this came in less than a combined ten innings of work! Even though the Yankees bats have suddenly gone quiet in their last few games, they had previously scored an average of 7 runs per game in winning three of four games. Also, Mendoza is only 24 years old and he’s making just his 7th career MLB start. Yankee Stadium can be very tough on a young, inexperienced hurler and that is precisely the category that Mendoza falls into at this point. As a result, this one turns into a Slugfest!