Sportsbook – Giants Small Favorites in Series vs. Braves. The Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants begin their best-of-five playoff series on Thursday with the Giants a small favorite. San Francisco will host the first two games of the series and they look to have the pitching edge. Tim Lincecum will start the opener on Thursday and he is a -150 favorite at the sports book against the Braves and Derek Lowe.
Giants -155 Favorite in the Series – The Giants are a -155 favorite at SBG to win the series against the Braves. If you just want to make a single bet then you can bet the series at the sports book. If you prefer to take it a game at a time then you can bet each game as it occurs. The total on Game 1 for Thursday is 6.5.
Who Will Score? Neither of these teams can score runs. The Braves offense is pathetic. Their best hitter is rookie Jason Heyward. The only other real threat is catcher Brian McCann. Derrek Lee is washed up, Alex Gonzalez can’t hit and was a terrible acquisition, Rick Ankiel is all or nothing and the rest of the hitters are nothing special either. The Giants are not much better. The addition of Pat Burrell really helped them so at least they have him and Aubrey Huff. Pablo Sandoval has been invisible but the Giants do have Buster Posey and Aaron Rowand.
Pitching – The Braves have Tim Hudson, Derek Lowe and Tommy Hanson. What hurts Atlanta is they had to use Hudson on Sunday so he can’ go until game three. That means the Braves best pitcher will go only once in this series. The Braves have a solid closer in Billy Wagner and a good setup guy in Jonny Venters. There is not much after those two as Takashi Saito is up and down. The Giants have the edge in pitching as they send out Lincecum and Matt Cain in the first two games. Jonathan Sanchez can be very good and Madison Bumgarner is better than anything the Braves have past Hudson. The Giants have a great closer in Brian Wilson and a variety of setup men.
Giants Should Win – The Giants should win this series against the baseball odds at the sportsbook but the Braves are playing for manager Bobby Cox who is retiring and it is not like San Francisco is that much better than the Braves.