The Phillies are down several key players. ...

How will Tarik Skubal fare in Dodgers start No. 2? ...

Just no excuse for playoff-hopeful St. Louis to lose a home series to Colorado, especially unable to beat the atrocious Kyle Freeland on Saturday (that hurt). It's the nearly as atrocious Michael Lorenzen (3-10, 6.94 ERA) today. Batters are hitting a cool .336 this season off Mike, which is absurd. The Cards' Alec Burleson might be worth an O1.5 total bases look as he's 4-for-5 off Lorenzen with two homers.

Always recommend waiting on lineups, but on most days nothing amiss should be up; Sundays and Thursdays get weird. The Cardinals can't be messing around at this point, and they cashed for us Saturday. This also might be the pitching "trap spot" of the season, but I also thought the Red Sox might be in one Friday and couldn't have been more wrong. Colorado's Kyle Freeland (3-10, 6.81 ERA) threw a first-ever complete game last time out at Coors Field with a career-high 115 pitches. This is metaphorically the QB who was prom king but now bags groceries -- nowhere to go but down. Did I mention Freeland is quite possibly the worst starting pitcher in the majors away: 0-7 with an 8.29 ERA.

To quote the Other Guys, maybe one of five movies I actually laugh out loud at, there are three things I like: "Kylie Minogue, small dimples (leave the rest of that quote there) ... and the fear in a man's eye when he knows I'm about to hurt him." Then a random TLC reference by Captain Gene, but I digress. Do like Kylie and dimples (and TLC) but more so the Brewers. When a good team loses at home to a mediocre/bad team in a series opener, I hammer said good team in the second game short of injury/pitching mismatches. We are there, and Twins closer Yoendrys Gomez and a few other high-leverage Minny guys will not be available having pitched Thursday and Friday.

I may get blistered Saturday, but here's another example of an intangibles situation that I so prefer (Brewers pick in same boat in this scenario), and I don't usually like this many games ahead of time. But the situations seem ripe. Like Milwaukee, Philadelphia is a significantly better team than it is facing Saturday but comes off a home upset loss where the visitors trashed their bullpen. Having had to play a makeup game on Thursday in Chicago, the Blue Jays have to be gassed. Very surprised they beat Zack Wheeler on Friday, that's for sure. But, again, I think works in our favor for Saturday.

On Friday, an outlier F5 total was an easy cash in this Angels-Marlins matchup (plenty of good seats available!); wish had 5.5 here, but that's -260. That said, 4.5 is also an outlier number as all of our books have 3.5 or 4. And it appears to be an excellent pitching matchup between Halos rookie Walbert Urena and Miami's Sandy Alcantara -- probably a popular NRFI spot too. Urena has been spectacular of late, which means the Angels will lose him to the Dodgers in the offseason for nothing in return. Sandy hasn't allowed a run spanning 13 innings in his past two outings. Full-game total is 7.5, so yep I think 4.5 is value even a bit juiced.

I'm not that high on the Cardinals, but they are still in the WC hunt and presumably HR Derby champion Jordan Walker will play Friday after missing two games with a minor injury and then Thursday off. Colorado is an atrocious 18-38 away and pitcher Ryan Feltner is 0-3 away from Denver with a 6.00 ERA. Bro didn't get the message you are supposed to be awful at Coors Field (where he has been much better) and not away. The Cards' Kyle Leahy, who is from Colorado, has a 2.95 home ERA. He pitched well in 7.0 innings last year vs. the Rockies. This should probably be -160.

Remember the old saying: "When EF Hutton talks, people listen"? Well, I have a similar baseball phrase: "When Zebby pitches away, I fade." I am speaking of Minnesota's Daniel Zebulon "Zebby" Matthews, who is 2-4 with a 7.33 ERA on the road. Milwaukee has won three in a row. The Brewers, who are 18 games over .500 at home, expect underrated slugger Jake Bauers (20 HR, 64 RBI) to return after missing a few games injured.

The full-game total is 8.5 so this seems pretty fair (it's 5.5 -- minor glitch in system not showing that number), and it's our only one on the board. Halos rookie George Klassen (0-1, 11.57 ERA) was hit hard in two early-season starts before being sent back to Triple-A. But he utterly dominated there, and the Marlins haven't seen him. Miami's Tyler Phillips has a 1.63 home ERA and only a couple of Angels have seen him.

I have hit a mini-rough patch; not so much having terrible nights of late but losing that swing game that is the difference between and up or down night. So if this hits, I'm done today. The Athletics have utterly quit on a seven-game slide and this is being played at 9:40 Pacific time so all their body clocks are likely askew. Due to injury, etc., today's lineup is quite lame -- I can barely tell you who a couple of guys are (Jonathan Ornelas?). The Reds aren't out of the WC race and have won five of six. Andrew Abbott has been hit or miss on the mound but only a few A's have seen him and they are 14 games under vs. lefties.

Cards-Yanks might get rained out so will add this one. Bullpen game for Detroit, and kudos to the Tigers for basically flipping the bird to the front office with those trades and having won four in a row. But at some point, reality will hit. The front office gave up. Seattle's bullpen is fully ready behind my dawg Bryan Woo, who is just utterly different at home (6-0, 2.20 ERA). He's what I imagine the Willy Wonka softball team is when leaving the Chocolate Factory. I mean all the batters are 4-foot tall. But inside the factory? Generous strike zone, river of chocolate and "Oompa loompa doompety doo."

I was done today if Houston won to go with cashes in Arlington and Denver -- and frankly I loved the Astros this afternoon. But they blew a 3-0 lead and lost in extras and that hurt. Weird week, really. The Cards might have the slightly better pitcher here in Andre Pallante over Will Warren, but with HR Derby champ Jordan Walker out again for the Cards I just don't like their lineup at all: Bryan Torres? Jimmy Crooks? César Prieto? Also the end of a trip. And the Cardinals appear to be fading overall. Warren has been better at home and few STL batters have seen him.

Winds are blowing in a bit at Coors Field and it's not crazy hot in Denver. A crucial hitter on each side is sitting: Yandy Diaz for the Rays and Hunter Goodman for the Rox (and Willi Castro too for them). Two pretty good starting pitchers in Nick Martinez (2.77 ERA overall) and Tomo Sugano (3.77 home ERA). I accidentally hit full-game total of 11.5 first but F5 is the one I'm playing.

Terrible spot for the lame-duck Giants at the end of a trip and having sold off pieces earlier this week. A total "going through the motions" type game it seems like ahead of a day off and the longest homestand of the second half next. Simply a game the playoff-hopeful Rangers must win against struggling Giants lefty Carson Whisenhunt (2-2, 6.63 ERA). Texas snapped a six-game skid with Tuesday's victory and has a chance for a nice little run here looking at the schedule. Feels like a fork in the road game, honestly, and I expect Skip Schumaker to manage it that way by emptying the bullpen (basically a bullpen game) because the Rangers are off Thursday as well.