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Posted at 11:00 AM EST.

9:05 PM EST. Plain and simple, this price is a bit ludicrous and therefore the underdog Tigers must be played. What we have here is a hot Oakland team that is getting plenty of press the past few days because they’ve caught and passed Seattle for the second Wild Card in the A.L., playing a Detroit squad that is a complete afterthought in this market. This is truly a sell high opportunity on both Oakland and its starting pitcher.

Since Edwin Jackson (RHP) made his debut on his 20th birthday, way back in 2003, he often flashed good results but his underlying metrics never indicated more than an average starter, and usually worse. In his first seven starts of 2018, he has put up an eyebrow raising 3.32 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. Approaching his 35th birthday and being passed over by every team in the majors year after year after year, is this resurgence legit? Absolutely not. Aside from his decent control, this is the same pitcher with a poor groundball rate in the high 30’s, thus continuing a long decline. His K-rate of 6.9 K’s/9 is consistent with his career mark and is backed by a tepid 9% swing and miss rate. Some hit and strand rate luck has kept his ERA low. His only improved metrics, (control and corresponding command) are not supported by the 52% first-pitch strike rate, indicating his walks are likely to increase. There is no reason to expect him to perform better than he has for his career, which has been a 4.65 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 6.9 K’s/9 and an xERA of 4.82 This is not a late career renaissance, this is a hot potato ready to burn someone so don’t let it be you.

From 2011-2015, Jordan Zimmerman (RHP) was an outstanding starting pitcher for the Nationals, but in 2016 and 2017 his skills seemed to be in decline. This year, at least under the surface, Zimmerman has looked like the pitcher he used to be. Zimmerman is definitely back, as his package of skills is in line with his skills during his best seasons: His ERA and xERA are not quite back to the standards of his prime, but are much improved over the last two years. One of the keys to Zimmerman's success with the Nationals was his command, which had deteriorated since his move to Detroit in 2016. This year his command is the 2nd best mark of his career. His swing and miss rate matches his career high and his K-rate is his best since his rookie season. Zimmerman is pitching at a level close to his heyday with the Nationals, and the underlying metrics support his resurgence. The A’s may be hot offensively but not so at Oakland Coliseum with a weak .686 OPS. Zimmermann’s outstanding RvR effectiveness figures as an applicable split in this matchup and makes he and the Tigers very worthy of getting behind here at this price.

PLEASE NOTE: One of the unique things about our website is that we provide write-ups every single day on every game we post. We’re not sure if everyone understands how time consuming that is and how difficult it is as well but if you do not, please try it one day and you’ll see.

That said, we’re not going to change that. We’ll have write-ups every single day like we always do but we’re also going to have another feature. You see, we post our games usually in the early afternoon or before 1:00 PM EST but there is a lot of movement and other intangibles that occur throughout the day that has influence on what we’re betting. Usually after 6:00 PM EST or thereabouts, we’re going to be adding other games that we’re betting on in a section called “add-ons” for today that we ARE NOT going to write up because it’s too time consuming and with an hour or less before the first game goes off, we just won’t have the time.

This is a feature that you will see on our home page with the other wagers and we’ll also tweet it out when our add-ons have been posted.

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