Cleveland Indians (Masterson) v. Toronto Blue Jays (Romero) 
 
The Indians and Blue Jays will face-off tonight as Major League Baseball starts the second half of the season after the All-Star break. The Indians expect to send right-hander Justin Masterson to the hill. Masterson is simply a big time groundball hurler, which is the perfect fit against this power hitting Toronto Blue Jays team.  
 
The Jays are second in MLB with 127 long balls in 2012. Once again, the ability for Masterson to keep the ball on the ground can help neutralize the home runs for the Blue Jays. The sinkerballer has allowed just five home runs over his last 13 starts.  
 
Meanwhile the enigmatic Ricky Romero will toe the rubber for the Blue Jays. After posting a 2.92 ERA in 2011, the 2012 campaign just hasn’t gone the southpaw’s way with a 5.22 ERA. Equally troubling is a 76/58 strikeout to walk ratio, which speaks to his difficulties. We all know the difficulties for the Indians facing left-handed pitchers this season with a 9-16 record. This is for good reason as the Indians feature a strong left-handed biased lineup. However, keep in mind that Romero features one of the largest reverse splits in MLB.  
 
This season left-handed hitters own an OPS almost 140 points higher against Romero. Meanwhile from 2009-2011 left-handed hitters featured an OPS over 170 points higher than against right-handed hitters. This is due to Romero’s outstanding change-up.  
 
We’ll side with the Indians and Masterson tonight in Rogers Center at a nice underdog price.