3 Ways To Bet Blue Jays vs. Red Sox – Fri, Sept. 9

The Jays begin a critical 3-game weekend series with the Red Sox Friday at Rogers Centre.

Toronto stumbles into this series with 5 losses in its last 6 games, including being swept in New York by the Yankees, and now trails Boston by 1 game in the AL East.

The Bosox come in from the west coast, where they went 3-3 against the A’s and Padres. Boston, however, has won 2 straight.

Friday’s pitching matchup pits Marco Estrada against Rick Porcello. Let’s look at 3 ways to bet the Blue Jays vs. Red Sox series opener.

1. Over 8.5

The total for this game opened at 8.5 and was quickly bet up to 9 at some sportsbooks, suggesting most of the early money has come in on the Over.

Estrada has been struggling of late, going 1-2 with a 6.35 ERA in his last 3 starts. Porcello has been pretty good recently, but he has a 6.86 ERA in 8 career games at the Rogers Centre and 5.27 ERA lifetime against the Blue Jays.

2. Blue Jays -1.5 On The Run Line

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking for reasons to bet on the Blue Jays.

So if you’re going to take Toronto, you might want to consider laying the 1.5 runs and going for a big payout (+200 at Pinnacle) instead of getting approximately even money on a Jays win.

Here’s why: When the Jays win, they usually win big. 62 of their 77 victories have come by 2 or more runs.

They’re also 15-23 in 1-run games. So if it’s a tight game late, the trend has been that they won’t win the game anyway. At least with the -1.5 run line, you gave yourself a shot at a bigger return.

(A caveat: The Red Sox also have a losing record in 1-run games, going 16-20.)

3. Edwin Encarnacion Over 0.5 RBI

Bodog and Sports Interaction are among the sportsbooks that offer MLB player props like this every day.

Odds don’t usually come out until a few hours before game time, so we don’t know what the payout on this prop would be, or if it would even be offered.

But if you can see odds on Encarnacion to drive in at least 1 run (or maybe Over 2 H+R+RBI, or some other offensive stat), it’s worth looking into. Edwin is 13 for 34 lifetime off Porcello, including 8 extra-base hits, 3 HR and 10 RBI.

Jose Bautista (14-34, 3HR, 9RBI) and Justin Smoak (3 HR, 9 RBI in 21 at-bats) also have good career numbers off the Bosox righty.