The Giants confidence level from the public probably has never been lower and as a serious bettor this is a good thing. We can easily find value on this team and it starts tonight when they play in a Monday night media hyped game against the Detroit Lions who more and more people love this team and their offense due to their big time fantasy football players. However, I'm looking at this game from a strict value perspective and the Giants have it as they have always been a very good road team under Tom Coughlin. Coaching is a huge advantage here for the Giants who by far have the better staff when you look at the Lions their hiring of Jim Caldwell makes me a bit curious.
Caldwell is a good offensive coach or maybe he just got lucky along the way when he was the Colts assistant and their QB coach under Peyton Manning. I say under Manning, because I do feel it's the other way around when you get lucky with a player like Manning and Caldwell has definitely cashed that ticket more than once now in his second stint as a head coach. However, he lacks any sort of discipline which is what I think this Lions team is missing. I really think as bad as the Giants looked in the pre-season they will look 10x better in week 1. Giants never like to tip their hat too much in pre-season and I truly think Eli Manning is capable of picking up a new offense despite what it looked like in the pre-season. I expect the Giants to control this game and I really like their chances of pulling off the upset against the over rated Lions.
Baltimore is being carried by Nelson Cruz right now and that's never a good thing in baseball, because you can easily pitch around them. The Red Sox look in good shape to pull the upset here on Monday night with Joe Kelly taking the mound (see last year's nubmers in September). He's got a 2.55 ERA over his last 3 starts and the Orioles have never faced him before including Nelson Cruz. Expect a quality pitching performance as he's also fresh and on extra rest.
For the Orioles they wills tart MIguel Gonzalez on 4 days rest who has a 3.79 ERA on the road. Gonzalez has quality starts against the Red Sox but he's supported by a bullpen that will do his team in tonight as they are posting a 5.20 ERA over their last 10 games and worse over their last 5.
