Scott Rickenbach Free Sports Picks & Handicapper Review

Divisional Dominator - Scott "The Bulldog" Rickenbach MLB Rotation #901 Friday 10* Top Play OVER the total in Washington Nationals vs New York Mets @ 6:05 ET - Max Scherzer has a great long-term reputation and that is helping keep this total lower than it should be. Even though he is still piling up the strikeouts this season, he is making more mistake pitches than he use to. That is why he has a 4.40 ERA in his 6 home starts. The Mets, being a division rival, have familiarity with him and don't be fooled by New York scoring just 3 runs yesterday as they did have 12 hits in that game and will make up for the low run total today. They'll need all the runs they can get because Mets starter Rick Porcello is likely to struggle. He is off a rare good start and he entered that outing with an 8.10 ERA over his two most recent appearances. Porcello is 1-4 with a 6.39 ERA in evening action this season and opponents are hitting .310 against him in night games on the year. Nats hitters have some familiarity with him and will do plenty of damage here. 10* OVER the total in Washington

Scott “The Bulldog” Rickenbach NBA Rotation #715 Friday 10* Top Play Miami Heat (+) vs Boston Celtics @ 8:30 ET – This line opened up at a -2 on Boston and is already up to a 3.5 as of Thursday afternoon. I fully understand the line move since the Celtics are in a “win or go home” situation but the odds makers set this number very low for a reason. In typical contrarian fashion I am against the move here. I will gladly grab the extra points being offered but it is certainly not without reasoning! The fact is that the Heat seem to have Boston’s number. No matter the situation, no matter the score, Miami just keeps battling and finding a way and they have frustrated this Celtics team and shattered its confidence. Look at the box score from Wednesday’s Game 4 and you will see that Boston actually shot better from 3-point land than the Heat did plus the Celtics made 4 more 3-pointers than did Miami and yet they still lost the game. It speaks volumes that Boston outscored the Heat by 12 points from beyond the arc and yet still lost the game by 3 points. Whether it is Herro or Butler stepping up, the Heat just keep coming at the Celtics and keeping them on their heels and that makes for a very dangerous underdog. I’ll take the points here. 10* MIAMI

Scott “The Bulldog” Rickenbach NHL Rotation #28 Friday 10* Top Play Dallas Stars Money Line (+) vs Tampa Bay Lightning @ 8 ET – I certainly have all the respect in the world for this Tampa Bay team. However, I see Dallas stepping up big time in this key spot in this series. The Stars just got thrashed by the Lightning in Game 3 but they showed a lot of resilience in Game 2 after getting into a 3-0 hole. Then in Game 3 they outshot Dallas by a big margin in period one but ultimately made too many mistakes and took bad penalties. That allowed Tampa Bay to quickly garner momentum and then the Lightning came out and took it to the Stars in period two before they knew what hit them! Give the Lightning credit for sure but now look for Dallas to come out with a strong effort in this game just like they did in Game 1 of this series. The other two times the Stars lost back to back games in this post-season they have responded with a win each time. In fact, before getting hammered in Game 3 of this series after a Game 2 loss, the Stars had been 6-1 the last 7 times they entered a post-season game off a loss. In other words, don’t be surprised when they respond with a huge effort here. It won’t be easy, because Tampa Bay is a very strong team and playing very well, but I see the underdog getting it done in this one after being embarrassed in Game 3 Wednesday. 10* DALLAS

Scott “The Bulldog” Rickenbach CFB Rotation #455 Friday 10* Top Play Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders (+) @ UTSA Roadrunners @ 8 ET – Why would the odds makers open up UTSA as a favorite of slightly less than a TD against a Middle Tennessee State team that has been blasted by a combined score of 89 to 14 in their first two games? Precisely! That -6.5 on the Roadrunners looked quite enticing and sure enough the early action has been on UTSA and has driven the line up to the key number of 7 which makes this an easy choice for me. I am happy to grab the +7 with a hungry underdog that takes a step down in level of competition here against a team that is a bit over-valued right now. First off the Roadrunners are 2-0 but faced an FCS team, Stephen F Austin, last week and a Texas State team that is annually a bad team and coming off a 3-9 season last year. The Roadrunners are on an 8-16 ATS run as a home favorite. Also, these teams have met twice in recent years and the road team won each game. Also, UTSA was originally scheduled to face Memphis but then the Tigers covid-19 situation changed all that so now bring in MTSU. This is a match-up the Runners may think they want but I have a strong feeling this will be upset city. The Blue Raiders are not a great team but they are certainly much better than the performances they have shown against Army and Troy. The key is that MTSU, in my opinion, is the best team that UTSA will have faced so far this season while the Roadrunners are the weakest team the Blue Raiders have faced this season. Don’t let the records fool you here. Great situation for an angry underdog playing with a chip on its shoulder in this one. 10* MIDDLE TENNESSEE