Art Aronson – AAA Sports NBA Picks & Plays

This is a 10* on OVER

By far, the most surprising result in Major League Baseball Tuesday night took place here in Arlington where the last place Rangers (54-90) defeated the first place Astros (84-60). It was only the fifth time in 17 tries that Texas was able to get a win in the season series. Keep in mind that Monday’s game ended up 15-1 in favor of Houston. We expect the road team to get things going at the plate again tonight as they face struggling Kohei Arihara. Arihara has made two starts since returning from the 60-day injured list. Both have gone Over. An issue with him going back to the start of the season is that Arihara almost never makes it through the fifth inning. Five of his last six starts have gone Over and he’s winless at home with a 9.22 ERA here. That’s not good. Especially since he’ll be facing an Astros team that puts up the second most runs per game in the majors (5.3 per game). So the road team will definitely score in this one. How about the home team? Well, Houston’s rotation has been besieged by injuries of late and today’s starter, Jose Urquidy, has not been immune. Like Arihara, Urquidy spent two months on the injured list. He hasn’t looked the same since, only lasting a total of 7.3 innings in two starts. The Over is 4-0-1 in Urquidy’s past five outings. Unlike most of the recent matchups that have been one-sided, we think this Astros-Rangers game will feature plenty of runs from both sides. Play on OVER

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This is an 8* on UNDER

The Brewers (89-56) and the Tigers (69-76) combined to score a total of one run in 11 innings Tuesday. That was a misfire by us as we laid the -1.5 on the run line with the favorite. Now certainly we didn’t expect Milwaukee to give up many runs. They came into last night riding a five-game win streak where they’d allowed a total of just seven runs. Three of their previous seven wins have been shutouts. Sure enough, they held the Tigers to three hits including the game-winning double in the 11th. We can’t envision a scenario where the home team does much at the plate this afternoon. Detroit will be facing Brandon Woodruff, who is among the league leaders in both ERA (2.48) and WHIP (0.97). Woodruff was roughed up a bit on Labor Day and then given the weekend off due to illness. We expect him to pitch well this afternoon on extended rest. In four of his five August starts, Woodruff allowed either one or zero runs. He has 24 strikeouts against only four walks his last three starts overall. The Tigers struck out 18 times last night! The Brewers had their fair share of chances at the plate, but they went only 1 for 10 when they had runners in scoring position. They should have won the game despite managing just four hits - all singles. We don’t think they’re going to score a ton today. Yesterday marked the second time in seven games they were shutout. Detroit is going with Matt Manning, who has allowed three runs or less in four of his last five starts. Play on UNDER

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