After a strong week, it was a disastrous last day of the first half of baseball for me. An 0-4 Sunday stung badly and the All-Star break was a welcomed occurrence. I’m happy to be back at it tonight though and with it being Friday, I’ve found another CFL play I really like for you football fans.

All lines taken from Pinnacle Sports with bet amounts “to win” on favorites and flat on underdogs

Play of the Day in Bold

MLB Pre-All Star Break: 101-107-13 (+$691)

MLB Post-All Star Break: 0-0 

CFL YTD: 0-1 (-200)

MLB plays

Cleveland ML (+137) $300 to win $411

The Indians start the second half trailing the Tigers by 7.5 games in the AL Central so this is a must-win series for them right out of the gate. Detroit went into Cleveland at the end of June and brought the brooms out on the Tribe, so Cleveland does have the revenge angle on their side tonight, but that’s not the only reason I’ve jumped on this play.

First, off, we’ve seen some movement on this line in Cleveland’s favor despite being in the minority. That’s always a good sign when you are playing decent teams as underdogs and tonight should be no different. As a team Cleveland is 4-0 SU the last four times they’ve been a dog of +150 or less and they are 4-1 SU in their last five as a dog of any price. Trevor Bauer has been stellar in this role too as he’s 5-2 SU the last seven times he’s been a dog of +150 or less. With the revenge angle and motivation clearly on the side of Cleveland tonight as they try to catch Detroit, I expect the Tribe to take the opener of this series.

Baltimore ML (+139) $200 to win $278

A battle of 1st place teams goes down in the Bay area tonight and I’m liking the Baltimore Orioles to go into Oakland and steal Game 1. This is another game that has seen the line move in Baltimore’s favor with the O’s being in the minority and with the A’s having the most participants in the All-Star game, there might be a lingering hangover affect for some of those guys.

O’s starter Chris Tillman pitched 14 innings in two starts against teh A’s last year and finished those games with a 1.93 ERA and 1.00 WHIP, thanks to Oakland hitting .204 against him. He hasn’t been quite as dominant in general this year, but he has shown flashes of what he can be. If he can have a similar performance against the A’s tonight, the +139 value on a first place Baltimore team that can hit is quite juicy.

CFL Plays

Hamilton +9.5 (-112) $336 to win $300  and ML (+402) $100 to win $402

I missed on my opening play in the CFL this year, but I’m coming back with another play tonight, one that I think is stronger. I say that because I’m incorporating a strong strategy I use in the NFL tonight with Hamilton and that’s playing ON teams when they are coming off a bye.

With the addition of yet another expansion team in Ottawa this year (teams have folded there twice in the past 20 years), the CFL is now at nine teams and that means each club gets two bye weeks this year. That’s huge for teams coming off that extra week of rest with how the playoff structure is set up and quite possibly we could see these post-bye teams go on quite a roll. We saw Calgary take advantage of it last week as they rolled over the Argos in Toronto and the Stampeders are likely to fall victim to that same scenario tonight.

Calgary’s a good team, but winning by double digits against a rested team that’s had two weeks to prepare for you is a tough task. It’s not like Hamilton’s a bad team either as they made the Grey Cup a season ago and they’ll be able to match Calgary score for score if this game turns into a shootout. I believe the Tiger Cats have a great shot at winning this game outright (hence the small ML bet), but at worse Hamilton will keep this game within one score.