Hello all, and welcome to another beautiful day that features NFL football! Before we get to that, we have get into something that hasn’t been featured on this blog yet: MLB baseball.
Now, baseball is my favorite sport. If I had to choose between it and football, I’d go baseball every time, but when it comes to gambling football will always be king.
One of the greatest things in sports is a tight MLB playoff race. The weather may be getting colder but baseball diamonds heat up in September. We saw that first-hand last night in Seattle.
Coming into this series between Houston and Seattle, the Astros held a half-game lead over the Mariners for the final AL wildcard spot. They split the first two games of the series and put on a show in the rubber game last night.
Framber Valdez pitched well despite his lack of curveball control, Yordan Álvarez hit one of his classic home runs (a laser that goes 450 in about 3 seconds), and the benches cleared after Hector Neris jawed at and walked toward Julio Rodríguez after striking him out.
Julio had himself a disappointing series, not recording a hit in 9 at-bats. The Mariners now sit a game and a half behind the Astros and two games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the wildcard standings with one series left.
In other news, there’s football on tonight! The Lions go into Green Bay, where they ended the Packers’ playoff hopes last season.
The Lions are coming off a good game against the Falcons on both sides of the ball, and the Packers came back from down 17 against the Saints after Derek Carr went down with a shoulder injury. While both were great wins, the Lions looked a bit better to me last week.
I’m always hesitant to pick against the Packers at Lambeau, but this is a game I don’t want to overthink. This is a different Packers team than we’ve seen in years past. Aaron Jones, Christian Watson and Jaire Alexander may all be back tonight, but Detroit is clearly the better football team.
I still don’t believe in Jordan Love. Before the Carr injury last week he looked bad. I don’t trust a guy who’s hit-or-miss to play well under the bright lights. The potential is there, and I hope he proves me wrong, but right now I’m going to stick with the experienced quarterback in primetime.
The current spread has the Lions favored by 1.5. Because of this, I’ll be taking Detroit ML at -125. A -1.5 line is always a recipe for disaster.
Enjoy a cold beer and good football tonight, as this should be the first decent Thursday Night game we’ve had since week one.
OFFICIAL PICK – Lions ML -125 1.5u
NFL RECORD TO DATE – 2-3 -0.8u
Tough Money Sports 