Boston Red Sox vs Toronto Blue Jays Betting Picks

Toronto is playing its best baseball of the summer right now, winners of three in a row, while Boston limps into this afternoon on a five-game losing streak that has swallowed whatever edge Sonny Gray's rotation was supposed to provide. We had this same matchup earlier this week, backed the Blue Jays as a plus-money underdog, and watched Toronto scratch out a 2-1 win. The pitching matchup tells a similar story this afternoon. Max Scherzer's ERA sits at an ugly 7.25, but that number is dragged down by an April that's long gone: over his last two starts, he's allowed three earned runs combined in 11.1 innings. Payton Tolle has pitched well for Boston all year, yet the one time he faced Toronto, in June, he walked away with a loss, three runs and two home runs allowed in five innings. A team playing loose and confident at home against a club that can't find a win right now is exactly the kind of spot my model targets with home underdogs. Take the Blue Jays on the moneyline this afternoon.

Jameson Taillon takes the mound for Toronto tonight in just his second start since the Blue Jays picked him up from the Cubs on August 2, and that ugly 5.96 ERA belongs mostly to Chicago, not here. His Toronto debut against Houston came with a noticeably livelier fastball, the kind of first impression that means more than a bloated season number still carrying dead weight from his old team. Sonny Gray is the best story in Boston's rotation this year, 14-2 with a 2.78 ERA, and I'm not arguing he isn't good. I'm arguing one dominant arm doesn't clinch a series in this division. Toronto has won seven of its last ten and takes the mound off consecutive wins, the latest a road upset over Zack Wheeler and the Phillies as a plus-money underdog. Kazuma Okamoto has been Toronto's most consistent power threat all season, and Andrés Giménez is in the middle of one of his hottest stretches at the plate, the kind of lineup that can scratch out enough against even a great arm on one given night. Boston's road record is real, but so is a Toronto club playing its most complete baseball of the summer at home. We don't need the better team over 162 games tonight, just one competitive lineup catching a pitcher on a short professional relationship with his new club. Take the Blue Jays as my MLB Game of the Week.