The first playoff series in baseball gets underway on Wednesday with the Tampa Bay Rays favored over the Texas Rangers. There are three series that begin on Wednesday and the Rangers and Rays will be playing the afternoon game on TBS. It will be David Price for the Rays and Cliff Lee for the Rangers. Tampa is a -128 favorite in sports betting at Sbgglobal and the total on the game is 7 under.
The Rays are a -150 favorite in sports betting to win the series against the Rangers. Both teams are division winners but the Rays have the home field edge since they finished with more wins than Texas this season. They don’t have much of an edge on Wednesday though even though 19-game winner David Price is going. That is because the Rangers are going with playoff stud Cliff Lee. If this series goes the full five games then Price and Lee would likely face each other again in Game 5.
Rays – The Rays are going with Price, James Shields, Matt Garza and Wade Davis as their four starters. The rotation is solid but not spectacular after Price. The bullpen is excellent led by closer Rafael Soriano. If the Rays get the lead they usually close things out. The Rays have a solid, but not spectacular lineup. They are led by Evan Longoria who is an MVP candidate. Tampa also has Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena. Rookie John Jason has really played well of late and he could be a major factor in this series. Not to be forgotten are B.J. Upton and Ben Zobrist.
Lee and Hamilton for Texas – If the Rangers are to win this series against the odds at sports betting companies they need Cliff Lee to be great and they need Josh Hamilton to be healthy. Neither of those two things are a given. Hamilton missed much of the month of September with an injury. Hamilton carries this offense and for Texas to win they need him to come up big. Texas also needs Lee because they are not as deep in the rotation as Tampa Bay. The Rangers do have C.J. Wilson though and he has been excellent. Colby Lewis is the third guy and who knows what they do at number four if needed. The Rangers have a good closer in Neftali Feliz and a serviceable bullpen overall.