MLB Friday Betting Matchups: July 17

July 15, 2015 by Dave Schwab

MLB Friday Betting Matchups: July 17, The MLB regular season resumes play this Friday with a full stale of 15 games following this week’s All-Star break, but I have zeroed in on two matchups between four third-place teams that are all looking for a fast start to the second-half of the season.

The first matchup is an American League clash between the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Both teams will start their second-half run at an even 44-44 with the Orioles four games off the pace in the highly competitive AL East behind New York and Tampa Bay, while the Tigers try and cut into a nine-game deficit against Kansas City.

Baltimore closed-out the first half with a 2-8 slide in its last 10 games and Detroit dropped three of four games to second-place Minnesota last weekend, so both of these teams come into this series in need of a couple of wins. The matchup on the mound on Friday night pits the Orioles’ Ubaldo Jimenez against Detroit’s Anibal Sanchez. Jimenez has only allowed one earned run in his last 20 innings pitched, while Sanchez has allowed a total of 14 earned runs over his last four starts. The road team in this matchup is 5-2 in the last seven meetings.

The Chicago Cubs are eight games off the pace in the NL Central behind both Pittsburgh and division leader St. Louis. They stumbled a bit to a 3-4 mark in their last seven games to head into the All-Star break with a record of 47-40. This Friday night they will kick-off a three-game weekend series on the road against Atlanta. The Braves are in third-place in the NL East and seven games back after losing five-straight road games last week to fall to 42-47 overall.

Both of these teams are averaging 3.9 runs a game, but the Cubs have the overall advantage in pitching with a staff ERA of 3.31 verse Atlanta’s team ERA of 4.01. The matchup on the mound for Game 1 of this series is between Kyle Kendricks for Chicago and Atlanta’s Julio Teheran. Both pitchers come in hot with Kendricks not allowing an earned run in his last three starts and Teheran going 14 innings without allowing an earned run in his last two starts at home. The Braves have won six of the last seven meetings overall and they are a perfect 5-0 in their last five home games against the Cubs.

Be sure to check VietBet USA Live Betting Sportsbooks for the betting odds for both of these games as the best MLB betting site for US Players.

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