9-19-08

[Mr. IWS]

Scott's MLB TOP HAMMER BEATDOWN! *3-0 MLB Sweep Last Night! Get Scott's Friday night football winner FREE, along with Saturday's CONF GOY, WIPEOUT GOY, and Scott's NFL Sunday Night GOM. It's all on the house at 1-800-447-8517! (953) HOU Astros
(954) PIT Pirates
Take " (954) PIT Pirates "
I'm playing Pittsburgh on Friday, my 5* Hammer. The Astros teased their fans, almost over-taking the Brewers, Mets, and Phillies, in the wildcard chase. But man, did the short-lived hope crash with a loud thud! The Astros have now dropped five straight in blowout fashion. The offense hit the wall and then some, scoring just 0, 1, 1, 2, & 1 runs during the skid. Meanwhile, pitching has crashed, allowing 5, 6, 5, 14, and 8 runs. Tonight, Randy Wolf takes to the road mound, and that in itself has been a disaster. Wolf has made a combined 15 road starts for the Padres and Astros this season. He's 2-7 in his decisions, getting rocked for a 6.13 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, and .294 BAA. The Pirates will send Ian Snell to the bump. The Astros are not only in a serious hitting slump over the past five games, but they have scored an average of just 3.0 runs per game in 40 road night games against righthanders this season. Look for the Pirates to add to Houston's struggles with a win on Friday. My 5* Hammer is a play on Pittsburgh. Thanks! GL! Scott.

[Mr. IWS]

bob lean
CONNECTICUT (-12.0) 33 Baylor 23
05:00 PM Pacific Time Friday, Sep-19
Baylor won big for me last week against Washington State and the Bears still appear to be underrated under new coach Art Briles. Briles has brought in an offense that has proven to be successful at Houston and his fantastic freshman quarterback Robert Griffin is bringing that attack to life with a combination of good passing (9.1 yards per pass play and zero interceptions) and great running (307 yards on just 27 rushing plays). Griffin has been joined by sophomore back Jay Finley, who has run for 232 yards at 8.3 ypr in 3 games. Connecticut is very good defending the pass, but they are just mediocre against the run and I expect Griffin to have another good rushing performance. Baylor’s defense was pretty good against the run last year and their pass defense has greatly improved under the new coaching staff, so the Bears are now about average defensively and shouldn’t be overwhelmed by U Conn’s very strong rushing attack. The Huskies have averaged 305 yards at 6.3 yards per rushing play this season and they’ll get their yards on the ground even though Baylor has yielded just 3.8 yprp in their first 3 games (against teams that would average only 4.0 yprp against an average team). Overall it appears as if Baylor is underrated, as my ratings favor U Conn by just 5 points and using this year’s games only would make this game a pick. Connecticut, however, applies to a very strong 42-10-1 ATS subset of a 106-39-4 ATS home momentum situation, so I’ll only lean with the Bears this week.

[Mr. IWS]

Ben Burns


6* Top Baylor vs U Connecticut UNDER 51.5

5* Best Toronto Blue Jays vs Boston Red Sox

[Mr. IWS]

Root today..

Chairman- Blue Jays
Millionaire- Rays

[Mr. IWS]

Larry Ness' Prime Time Delight (4-0 the L2 days in all sports / 19-11 start in FB '08!)-Fri
My Primetime Delight is on U Conn at 8:00 ET. Baylor opened its season with three straight home matchups, beginning with a 41-13 loss to Wake Forest. The Bears were able to rebound with back-to-back wins over Northwestern State (51-6) and Washington State (45-17). As for U Conn, the Huskies have opened by winning three straight games. The year began with a 35-3 victory over Hofstra, followed by a hard-fought 12-9 OT win over Temple on the road and then this past weekend, the Huskies continued their strong start with a 45-10 rout of Virginia. It was marked the ninth consecutive victory for the Huskies at Rentschler Field. Baylor has a new coach in Art Briles, who won four state high school titles and in five years at Houston, took the Cougars to four bowls. However, in Baylor, he takes over the Big 12's worst team. The Bears are 11-85 all-time in league play. Freshman QB Robert Griffin has led the team to two straight wins after the Wake Forest loss and last week (vs Wash St), set a school record with 217 rushing yards (on just 11 carries). He's 33-55 (62.3) through three games with 548 yards (4 TDs / 0 TDs). The people of Waco are very excited but hold on. Against Wake (at home!), the Bears totaled only 250 yards with just 15 FDs. The team ran for 94 yards (34 attempts), as Griffin had 29 YR on 11 carries (11-19 passing for 125 yards 0 TDs / 0 INTs). Is it really significant the he and the Bears were good against Northwestern St and a pathetic Wash St team (Cougars are 0-3, allowing 50.0 PPG and 475.7 YPG!)? Randy Edsall is in his 10th year at U Conn and has overseen the tremendous growth of this football program. The Huskies finished 9-4 last year and for the first time in school history, entered the top-25 in the polls. U Conn is getting ready to get back in the polls this year, after its 3-0 start. They've been led by RB Donald Brown, who has 566 YR (7.2) and eight TDs. He had 206 yards and three scores last week vs Virginia (U Conn ran for 382 yards!) and the team averages 297.7 YPG (6.9) on the ground with 11 rushing TDs on the season. QB Tyler Lorenzen hasn't been asked to do much this year but he's capable, if nothing special. Along with Brown, it's the U Conn defense which is the star of the team. The Huskies have allowed a total of just 22 points in three games (7.3 per) and rank 15th nationally, allowing 229.0 YPG. U Conn is allowing just 66.3 YPG on the ground (2.6 per) and is No. 1 in passing efficiency with zero TD passes allowed with six INTs. Baylor has been a DREADFUL road team (first TY), going 6-46 SU the last 10 years. The Bears have been a road dog in 48 of those 52 games, going 2-46 SU and 18-30 ATS. The Bears have not beat a non-conference BCS team on the road since 1996, and are 0-6 SU and 2-4 ATS during that span. As mentioned earlier, U Conn has won NINE straight at home, is 15-4 ATS in its last 19 home games and 14-7-1 as a home favorite since 2000. All Huskies in this one. Prime Time Delight 15* U Conn.

Good Luck...Larry

[Mr. IWS]

Larry Ness' Las Vegas insider-MLB (7-3 run L7 days / 53-33 with MLB Insiders s/May 26!)
My Las Vegas Insider is on the NY Mets at 7:35 ET. Let me get the bad stuff out of the way, first. The Mets still have last year's monumental late-season collapse "hanging over their heads" plus they haven't exactly been 'on fire' in September, going 6-6 after a 3-0 start to the month. What's more, the Mets are 0-6 in Atlanta in '08, batting a sad .221 as a team while averaging 2.5 RPG. The team's struggling bullpen (4.98 ERA since the break) has been just ABYSMAL in its six Atlanta games, posting a 9.53 ERA. So why is my LONE play in Friday's MLB on the Mets? Let's start with Oliver Perez. Perez had a huge "bounce-back" season in '07 (15-10, 3.56 ERA) and while his overall mark in '08 is just 10-7 (4.09 ERA), he's been very good since late June. Perez has allowed three ERs or less in 12 of his last 15 starts, with the Mets going 11-4. The lefty will face an Atlanta team which has struggled all year vs left-handed starters, going 19-30 overall (4.3 RPG), including an 11-23 mark (3.9 RPG) vs lefties in night games. Getting the start for Atlanta is lefty Jo-Jo Reyes. Reyes is having a miserable season, as he enters the game 3-11 with a 5.50 ERA in 20 starts (team is 6-14). He'll enter this game 0-7 with a 6.80 ERA in his last 10 starts and is facing a New York team which is 32-20 vs lefties this year, including going 24-8 in night games (5.7 RPG). Las Vegas Insider on the NY Mets.

Good Luck...Larry