BEST LINE: Pinnacle -1½ +104

The wind is blowing out today at Wrigley and that’s a pretty good time to be spotting runs, especially when considering the matchup. Masahiro Tanaka has lived up to all the hype with eight dominant outings in his nine starts, including all four of his starts on the road. Tanaka will now face a Cubs lineup has not hit well this season, as they have a .234 BA and .661 OPS. Tanaka's demonstrated skill set is ridiculous, as he has a 2.43 xERA, 10.2 K/9, a 16% swinging strike rate, which is the highest mark in MLB, outstanding command (7BB in 58 IP) and a 49% groundball rate. Tanaka has the most dominating across the board stats in all of baseball.

Jason Hammel has enjoyed an early surge in his skills. After posting some ugly numbers in 2013, his skills have improved across-the-board. A change in his pitch mix could explain why. He threw his four-seam fastball 30% of the time in 2013. He's throwing it only 10% of the time now. He uses his two-seam fastball 50% of the time, and it has become a lot more effective for him. His K% on that pitch has jumped from 10% to 18%, and his swinging strike rate on it has increased from 4% to 8%. However, this is a small sample size and Hammel hasn’t shown consistently strong skills since 2010. Furthermore, his 40% fly-ball rate is not going to play well at Wrigley with the wind blowing out. The total in this one is 7½ and that’s an extremely low number with the wind blowing out at Wrigley. The Yanks figure to score five or more tonight and that should be plenty enough support for Tanaka to take care of the rest.