The Yankees have lost 13 of 16 in Tampa Bay, and because of that I think we are getting good line value considering the pitching advantage the Yankees will have during tonight's game. Phelps has been impressive over his last 3 starts with a combined 1.83 ERA against 3 solid hitting teams who rank 11th, 6th and 4th in OPS vs. RHP. He'll face the Rays who are 9th, but he's handled them pretty well as they have a .156 AVG and .469 OPS in 32 AB.
Roberto Hernandez on the other hand had been pitching well until Baltimore hit him hard last weekend. I see more of the same tonight with Curtis Granderson back and going going 3-3 in his last game and Cano hitting 3 HR over the last 7 days they are a combined 28-62 against Hernandez who will also have to get by plenty of lefties in the Yankees line up. That should be an issue because lefties have a .940 OPS off him this year. Hernandez biggest problem is giving up the home run as 25% of his fly ball have resulted in HR and that comes out to nearly 2 per 9 innings on the year. It just so happens that the Yankees continue to be a team relying on HR's. They lost their last two games facing the Orioles starters who both had HR/FB ratios at 11%. I expect the HR to fly again tonight along with the Yankees complete game effort as they also have a major advantage in the bullpen and even Fernando Rodney has 4 blown saves on the year for the leagues 29th ranked bullpen.
I think we still have value in Game 2 with the Pacers. As I mentioned in my analysis in game 1 the Pacers match up extremely well with the Heat. They have defenders in George and Stephenson who can match up pretty well with the Heat's top two scorers. Indiana's biggest strength is Miami's biggest weakness - rebounding, and front line play and when you have match up advantages like the Pacers do 7.5 points seems like an awful lot.
I also believe the Pacers will come out in this game with everything they got in order to get this series back to Indiana with the series tied. This has been a resilient group all year and could have easily won this game on Wednesday. The Pacers were never down by more than 5 throughout the entire game and they still did not play their best game defensively. I expect them to come back in game 2 with a better effort with another chance to come away with an outright win. The Pacers are 23-13 ATS in their last 36 following a loss and 18-7 ATS after a road loss. The Heat are 2-4 ATS in the playoffs at home this year.
