Guaranteed Cappers

The Angels are 12-22. They've also played the Guardians (22-12), Phillies (24-11), Twins (19-14) and Orioles (23-11) during their past four series. Those are all strong teams, much better than the Pirates.

The 16-19 Pirates don't deserve to be such a big favorite against the Angels.

Angels starter Tyler Anderson is a veteran, who knows how to pitch. He has a 2.23 ERA on the season. The Angels expect to be reinforced with catcher Logan O'Hoppe and infielder Luis Rengifo today. Both have been out.

The Pirates are going with Mitch Keller, who never can be relied upon. The Pirates have lost his last three starts. Keller's ERA during this span is 6.19.

It takes a certain ineptitude to lose a home series to the White Sox, who are 3-14 on the road. The Cardinals managed to pull off the feat this weekend.

Both the Mets and Cardinals have been disappointments. But I'd rather take a plus price with the Mets than back the Cardinals, who rank among the bottom-three in several important offensive categories. This includes home runs and runs.

St. Louis is 6-9 at home. The Mets are 7-8 on the road.

Sean Manaea goes for the Mets. He has a 3.07 ERA. The Cardinals have failed to score more than three runs in five of their last seven games.

The Cardinals are going with Kyle Gibson, who has a 3.79 ERA. Gibson is the poster child for mediocre journeymen. And that might be giving him too much credit.

I get that the defending world champion Nuggets don't want to fall to 0-2 in this series, especially being the home team.

However, the Timberwolves are playing their best ball, while the Nuggets are not, and Minnesota matches up well to Denver.

Minnesota is 5-0 in the playoffs with each victory being by at least six points. This includes a 106-99 road win against the Nuggets this past Saturday.

The Timberwolves rank first in fewest points allowed and defensive field goal percentage. They have an emerging superstar in Anthony Edwards and big athletic skilled defenders to bother Nikola Jokic with Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns and Naz Reid. Jokic shot just 11-of-25 from the floor in Game 1.

Minnesota easily was the superior team in Game 1. There is no reason the Timberwolves can't repeat that. The Nuggets are 0-4 ATS the past four times they've been favored. Denver and the Lakers scored the same amount of points during the last four games of their series.

While Edwards is averaging 39.6 points in his last three games, Denver's key scorer, Jamal Murray, hasn't been 100 percent because of a calf strain. Murry is shooting just 40.3 percent from the floor in the playoffs compared to 48.1 percent during the regular season.