Free Baseball Bet Apr28'09: Seattle (F.Hernandez/R) @ Chicago (Danks/L)

Here we again see a line that opened stronger for the favorite but has softened to a point that appears to provide great value. "King Felix" gets a lot of respect wherever he goes and it would seem that he may be the reason why this line has shifted over 20 points.

While it is the Mariners that happen to be the one of these two teams with a winning record for the year, they have been leaning heavily on their pitching (and defense). At the plate, they have posted just a .672 OPS overall and an even worse .579 OPS against lefties (both 2nd worst in MLB). The White Sox are more middle of the road, and have faired reasonably well against righties with a .772 OPS.

The contrast gets even more stark with the past 10 game relevant batting averages:

	vs Righties	vs Lefties
Seattle		.219
Chicago	.308

Tack on an anaemic .336 overall SLG% for the Mariners, and they appear fortunate to be 5-5 of late. One has to feel just a bit more confident with the White Sox .435 SLG% over the same period.

But the killer blow for this game comes in the form of the head-to-head pitcher/hitter matchup data:

Batters vs	OPS	AVG
Felix Hernandez vs CHW	1.278	.386
John Danks vs SEA	.864	.305

While Danks is not "shut-down" against the Mariners, he fares much better than King Felix does against the Southside Sox. However, the one thing you might want to watch out for is if Jim Thome is not in the starting lineup for this game; nobody has benefitted as much has he, going 5 for 8 with 3 HR against Hernandez.

While Felix has started the year off nicely, Danks has been near perfect in his three starts by allowing just 2 runs in 19 innings of work. With the White Sox at home, this game is a strong play.

Pick: White Sox -1.5 +170