a blog by Brian Did you think I was kidding when I said I was going to throw a fuck-load of segments out there? Thursdays will be locked up weekly with Thursday Picks and Hot Chics. This segment will consist of three picks each week, each pick will be for an event happening at the tail end of the week and they will also be from three different sports. I will picking against real Vegas betting lines, lines provided by www.vegasinsider.com. I'm starting small, somewhere down the line if this segment works out, we can expand and do more engaging shit. For now, here are the picks. New England Patriots at Tampa Bay BuccaneersThursday, October 5th. Kickoff at 8:25. NE: -5.5 -110TB: +5.5 -110I barely know how to read to this shit so if I have to explain to you, how these here numbers above work, then this blog probably ain't for you. New England favored five and a half points in Tampa Bay. A couple things concern me here. The big one is the Patriots defense. The Patriots have the worst defense in the NFL right now. While they do have an impressive roster on paper, paper is the only place they have impressed this season. The secondary looks horrible, the linebackers get exposed on nearly every down. Teams have been able to move to football through the air and on the ground with ease. In my opinion, a lot of issues stem from the linebacker positions. Kyle Van Noy, is supposed to be a versatile athletic linebacker. Instead he has resembled a revolving door, allowing running backs to blow by him, offensive line to crush him out of the running lanes and receivers/tight ends to speed past him with ease. Obviously, I can't put the entirety of blame on him. Stephone Gilmore has played terribly, and dare I say I've seen what I can call in hindsight "coaching mistakes". Like tasking Cassuis Marsh to cover Kareem Hunt. Anyway, this Patriots defense is playing as bad as I've seen since the 2010-2013 years. The Buccaneers have a powerful offense and they are at home. My feeling is this is going to be another close game. One that comes down to that last few possessions. The Patriots should win this game but not by 6. I think the difference in score will be closer to 3, so I'm taking Tampa. This should be a good game, so I really don't know why the line was at 5.5. Especially with the struggling Patriots defense and the Tampa Bay offense. I really wouldn't be surprised to see another late defeat for the Patriots, since their defense is more porous than a strainer. Boston Red Sox at Houston AstrosThursday, October 5th. First Pitch at 4:05 BOS: +121HOU: -131Since I already understand how money line works, we are going use it instead of run line which I'm guessing is some baseball specific betting line. I'm not trying to learn another style of betting line which I will never use. Baseball people must love this match up. It's two teams with opposing strengths. The Red Sox have a great starting rotation, possibly even better with a four man rotation. They also have one of the best bullpens in baseball right now. Craig Kimbrell is having a historic season, while the Astros have been a batting powerhouse this season. Jose Altuve, Josh Reddick, Carlos Correa are all studs and have had great seasons up to this point. They've also had good years from guys like Marwin Gonzalez, George Springer, and Brian McCann. Even their rookie thirdbasemen, Alex Bregman, has put together a good season despite a couple of slow patches early and late. The Astros have a scary lineup, basically 1-9. If you get too caught up in their lineup, you might forget they also have a good starting rotation. At the front end of it, they have two talented guys who I would say are #1 guys on most teams rotations, Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel. Verlander had a rough start to open the season. He started the season in Detroit and eventually wound up being traded off waivers or something like that. The Astros acquired him in the early morning of September 1st. For all intensive purposes, we only need to consider Verlander and Sale when it comes to the starting pitchers for both teams since that is who the managers of the squads are sending out today. So consider what a lefty pitcher does to the Astro lineup and conversely what a righty does to the Sox. My gut is telling me the Astros will struggle with the dominant lefty, Sale. I forsee the Astro offense struggling the first two times through the order. I also expect something similar from the Sox lineup. I do however look at the power lefties in the Sox lineup, especially Devers, and expect a big game from at least one of them (for the record, I expect Devers to have a good game at the plate). Call me a homer, but I'm going with the dogs here. Not a great line to make money on but definitely take the Sox for game 1. Leandro "Pitbull" Higo v. "Baby" Joe TaimangloFriday, October 6th. Main Card at 9:00. Higo: -210"Baby" Joe: +175***MMA odds from www.oddsshark.com*** Bellator boasts a big fight night on Friday. The main card for Bellator 184 on Spike Tv, follows a trend the UFC has started by attempting to stack cards with as many talented fighters as they possibly can. If you are not a die hard MMA fan, you most likely won't know who either of these fighters are. Higo is on the younger end of his athletic prime, 28. Higo has just one fight inside the Bellator cage. A fight he lost to the current bantamweight champ, Eduardo Dantas. Higo is a technician, he fights out of the Pitbull Brothers gym, where he trains with the brotherly duo and Bellator stars Patricky and Patricio Friere. Higo is tall for the 135 division, at 5'8. He's got real power and strength along with submission skills. Watching some of Higo's fights outside of Bellator, you can tell he has good boxing and footwork for the Bellator bantamweight division. On the other side, there is the man they call baby. Baby Joe Taimanglo, is a fight veteran with 31 professional fights. Maybe the reason, other than his baby face, he is called baby is his size. At just 5'4, he is on the small side for this division. What is not small on this guy? Everything but his height, and maybe his hands, but Baby Joe has serious power. A cardio machine, Taimanglo powers through unblocked headkicks and drives through his take downs seemingly always. He lacks the boxing technique as well as the same style of footwork. Yet he throws with conviction and can control his opponents laying on them or holding them against the fence. Like Higo, Baby Joe has got submission skills. He has a brown belt in BJJ under Renato Verissimo and holds twelve submission victories on his record. The most interesting aspect of this fight is a very old storyline when it comes to caged fighting. The bull and the matador. These two fighters contrast each other when it comes to aggression. Taimanglo is a pressure fighter, from the fights I have watched, he pushes forward even through hard head kicks and other strikes. While Taimanglo likes to be in his opponents face, he does have a good reach, 65', for a man who is 5'4. Higo should have a reach advantage but if he wants to capitalize on it, he'll have to get on his bike and make use of the space in the cage. This main card fight has the most potential out of the three others to make you money. Now if you don't trust my 15 second analysis, you can do the research yourself but I will tell you there is not much info out there on those guys, you'd have to see them fight to really get a good grasp on them and I have seen both. Higo is a stud and maybe one day could be a serious title contender in the UFC, where the talent is more abundant across all their divisions. I have to go with the favorite here, he has just to much talent to bet against. Baby Joe just doesn't seem to have good enough striking to either set up a solid takedown or daze Higo enough to finish him. It should be a close fight but I am taking Higo, the favorite, here. Thanks, to those who stuck through this. I do understand it probably is not the greatest blog to read on big sports Thursday. So, let us do a quick recap, make my picks clear so we can get the fuck out of here. New England Patriots -5.5 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers +5.5 Thursday. October 5th. Kickoff at 8:25. Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 5.5. I have them losing by less than 6, but it still counts for me if the Buccaneers outright beat the Patriots which I doubt will happen. Boston Red Sox +121 at Houston Astros -131Thursday, October 5th. First Pitch at 4:05 Boston Red Sox, the underdogs, to take the opening game of this series. Leandro Higo -210 v. Joe Taimanglo +175Friday, October 6th. Main Card at 9:00. Leandro Higo, to take the fight by unanimous decision but let me be clear; if Higo wins, by any means, I win. Comments are closed.
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