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It’s swing day in major league baseball which means you can catch more than just your average horse track bettor at your local book. Get that MLB lines sheet and grab wins mid-day and roll it over to tonight’s NBA playoff games.

Today’s free play comes in the total between the Braves and Diamondbacks. Tim Hudson heads to the mound against Ian Kennedy. Hudson started his first three games of the season with solid starts. Lately though he has been inconsistent, including two games of six earned runs allowed. One was on their last road trip against San Francisco.

Ian Kennedy is one of those pitchers that is crafty and gets out of jams inning after inning.

Look for both clubs to not extend either pitcher for a lot of innings this one, which means the bullpens will be called early. Grab the over in this one as innings seven thru nine will produce late runs over the total.

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KEVIN CORREIA’S LAST OUTING DID NOT GO NEARLY AS WELL AS HE WOULD OF LIKED. AGAINST CLEVELAND HE WAS ROUGHED UP RIGHT OFF THE BAT, ALLOWING TWO FIRST INNING SOLO HOME RUN SHOTS. ONE WAS TO NICK SWISHER DURING HIS FIRST AT-BAT SINCE COMING OFF THE DL. LOOK FOR CORREIA’S EARLY INNING WOES TO CARRY-OVER TODAY AT FENWAY PARK IN BOSTON.

TAKE BOSTON -1.5 FOR THE PLUS PAYOUT

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Boston’s Ryan Dempster has been terrific as a Red Sox starter. The savvy veteran has been ringing up opposing lineups at a high rate. Today though Dempster should come back down to Earth a bit. Toronto’s lineup has not lived up to their potential yet, but will shake up Dempster enough today. J. A. Happ will out pitch Dempster today and I do not believe Dempster will make it past the fifth inning.

Take the Blue Jays as the underdog for a plus payout today

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Today James Shields as a Kansas City Royals ace heads to the mound to face off against his old team at home in the Tampa Bay Rays. Typically you may be worried when a pitcher faces his old team, usually because it’s a pitcher that has barely made the rotation and is a journeyman. Shields is not that type and still has plenty of great pitching ahead of him.

What I like best in this matchup are two factors. Both Shields and Alex Cobb have been able to pitch six plus innings in all their starts this season. While doing so they’ve also pitched against some strong lineups with positive results. Shields last three starts have come against Detroit (3ER), Boston (1 ER), and Toronto (CG 3 ER). Cobb’s last three starts were against the Yankees (0 runs), Oakland (3 ER), and Boston (3 ER).

Take the under on todays matchup

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NO ANALYSIS ON TODAY’S FREE MLB PLAY, BUT THE PLAY TO TAKE IS THE OVER OF EIGHT RUNS BETWEEN THE MIAMI MARLINS AND MINNESOTA TWINS.

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Atlanta is off to a sterling start that has people changing their tune for playoff favorite already. At 13-2 and the way their pitching and bats are complimenting each other, it’s hard not to blame people. But in baseball unlike any other sport, opportunity knocks quite often against the elite teams. Tim Hudson has been awfully consistent and pitching likely won’t be the main issue in the matchup vs Pittsburgh.

Look for the bats on both sides to struggle to develop base runners on, and also to advance. Atlanta’s bats have been unbelievably hot that it has caused a whole lineup to gravitate to hitting the ball out of the park.

Wandy Rodriguez will need to get himself off to a solid first three innings. Those innings will be vital. If Rodriguez does his job and the Atlanta lineup keeps trying to power the ball out, it should have a trickle affect for the extension of the baseball game.

Expect a low scoring game that will hit the under as well, but take Pittsburgh overall.