BEST LINE: Pinnacle +132

POSTED at 9:00 AM EST. 

1:05 PM EST. With J.A. Happ going and with Edwin Encarnacion likely sitting this one out, the assignment today for the Blue Jays may seem like a difficult one. Happ comes in with a 4.10 ERA and a fly-ball bias profile so there is a strong chance of him getting roughed up a bit. However, we once again point out that the Blue Jays are playing too good to ignore as a dog, especially in this price range. Toronto is absolutely on fire while the Tigers have just four wins in their past 16 games. Even if Happ and the Jays pen, which is much stronger than the Tigers pen, gives up four or more, the Jays offense is capable of doing the same to Justin Verlander and Detroit’s volatile bullpen.

Two months into the 2014 season, the Justin Verlander we once knew has yet to make an appearance. After 12 starts and 79 innings pitched, Verlander sports a 3.99 ERA, a 57/31 K/BB split and he has looked more like a run-of-the-mill starter than a former Cy Young award winner. It’s not a case of bad luck or just one of those slow starts that several pitchers have every year either. Verlander’s strikeout rate decline stands out immediately and is likely correlated to diminished velocity. According to PITCHf/x, his average 93.1 MPH fastball is the lowest of his career and actually marks the fifth straight season of velocity loss. A lack of a dominant heater has forced him to paint the corners more and thus far he's failing to do so by walking nearly four batters a game. Hit % and strand % cancel each other out so his bloated xERA of 4.63 is a product of both poor skills and an abnormally low hr/f%. Things actually could get worse for Verlander before they get better. At age 31 with more than 1800 IP on his arm, we may in fact be looking at Verlander's new normal and signs of a rebound do not exist. Verlander’s swing and miss rate has been on a steady decline all season. Without his typical 95-98 MPH fastball to fall back on, Verlander has far less room for error and it seems he's having trouble adjusting. Counting him out would be a mistake, but xERA casts an ominous shadow over the potential for an imminent return to form. Verlander is priced like an ace but he’s not close to pitching like one and we’ll look to take advantage.