We cannot pass in some situations where a hot team brings a pretty consistent pitcher to the mound and still they are underdogs. That's happening with the Angels today as they face the Rangers with Joe Saunders on the mound.

The Angels are riding a 6-game winning streak and last night they beat the Rangers 5-2 despite being +121 road underdogs. Today Saunders will take the action and he is coming from 3 quality starts in his last 3 outings. After a bad stretch he bounced back well by posting a pretty decent .261 ERA and 1.113 WHIP in his last 3 starts and take note that the last 2 teams he faced it was the Dodgers and the Rockies - the best team and the hottest team of the league right now! Against the Rockies he allowed just one run across six innings on four hits, striking out six with one walk. Surely he has revenge in mind today because the worst start of the season was against this same Rangers' team in which he allowed 7 runs in just 5 innings. Remember that the Angels are 15-5 in Saunders' last 20 starts as an underdog.

The Rangers meanwhile 3-7 in their last 10 games and for only twice in that span they were able to hit a clip .300 or more. Note also that facing southpaw pitchers in the process they have a dismal mark of .210 for a not pretty .269 OBP number. Today they send Scott Feldman to the mound and Feldman is 0-2 with a 4.70 ERA in his last 4 starts. Actually he couldn't prevent a weak Dbacks' lineup to score 3 runs and one home run in his last start and the Angels are another completely "different animal". Not only they lead the league in terms of batting average but also they are scoring an amazing clip of 6.7 runs per game in their last 7 games. The Rangers are now in a slump and facing the hottest and more confident Angels' team the value is in my opinion with the Angels tonight.

Single Dime Play on LA Angels ML @ +100 on Bodog

PHILADELPHIA (39 - 34) at ATLANTA (35 - 40) 
Tuesday, 6/30/2009 7:10 PM JOE BLANTON (R) vs. DEREK LOWE (R)

The Phillies are happy that the Interleague is over because now they can concentrate in just dominating NL teams. After a terrible span they won their last 2 games batting back to back games in a clip above .300 for the first time in a long time. Today they send Joe Blanton to the mound and Blanton is pretty underrated for this contest. Just look for the runs allowed by him lately: 2, 4, 2, 1, 3 and 0 runs! Also let's not forget that in his last 4 outings he faced the Rays, Blue Jays, Red Sox and the Dodgers - all top teams! In fact, a quick look to the top hitting statistics and we see the following:

1.LA Angels .278
2.Tampa Bay .277
3. LA Dodgers .277
4. Toronto .274

That's right; Blaton faced 3 of 4 top batting teams in the league in his last 4 outings and the other team was?the Red Sox! He is a home run prone pitcher but he will pitch tonight in a pitchers' friendly park against a team that is ranked just 13th (of 16) in the NL with just 58 HR's.

Meanwhile the Braves send Derek Lowe to the mound and Lowe right now doesn't look like the dominating pitcher he was early on the season. In his last 3 outings he has the dismal numbers of 12.35 ERA and 2.830 WHIP. Not only he has now been hit hard in two of his past three starts but he is showing a terrible control on his pitches. The Phillies are right now back into a groove and today they will count with a hungry and fired up Jimmy Rollins. Curiously both pitchers already faced his opponents and while Lowe shut down the Phillies with 8 scoreless innings in Philadelphia, Blanton meanwhile was pounded twice at home by allowing 6 and 7 runs. However those starts were early on the season and currently the current form of both pitchers is way different. Take the Phillies in here.

After an awful month on bases hopefully I will bounce back strong, for today I have two WNBA Plays ? a sport that no one watches or cares but I?m pounding the books, 

Good luck

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