ASA Wins

ASA PLAY ON 9* Chicago White Sox Run Line (+1.5 runs) vs Chicago Cubs, Friday at 4:05 PM ET

The White Sox, of course, are not going to the post-season. The Cubs, very likely, are going to the post-season but they are still in a battle for the Central Division title with the Brewers. That said, the cross-town rival Pale Hose would love nothing more than to prevent the Cubs from getting any closer to that NL Central title! The White Sox will be ready to go here Friday afternoon and they have a red hot Reynaldo Lopez on the mound. The ChiSox are 5-1 in his last 6 starts and the lone loss came by just a single run. That is another reason we like the value here of the +1.5 runs with the home dog. Lopez has allowed just 2 earned runs TOTAL on only 15 hits in the 27 innings spanning his last 4 starts! He has been piling up strikeouts and the Cubs have never faced it. Now, while it is also true that the White Sox hitters have not faced Cubs starter Jose Quintana, they do know plenty about him as he went to the Cubs from the White Sox last season! Of course Quintana would love to have a good start against his former team but Lopez is even hotter than Quintana right now and we love the home dog value in this match-up. The Cubs are only 6-6 in their last 12 games but 3 of those 6 wins came by just 1 runs so, at -1.5 runs, the Cubbies are just 3-9 their last 12 games! Bet the White Sox on the run line (+1.5 runs) in afternoon action Friday

OVER – Penn State @ Illinois, Friday at 9:00 PM ET - The Penn State offense is clicking right now to say the least. After struggling a big in their opener vs App State (they still scored 38 points in regulation and 45 points for the game) the Nittany Lions have gone up and down the field at will the last two weeks. They scored 51 points on a solid Pittsburgh defense that allowed just 19 points to Georgia Tech last week with the Jackets scoring their final TD with just 35 seconds remaining in the game. Last week PSU topped that offensive performance by putting up 63 points and 643 yards Kent State. Head coach James Franklin has never been opposed to running up the score as witnessed last week when they scored 28 in the first half and 35 in the second half when the game was already well out of reach. The Illinois defense is allowing 21 PPG through three contests this year but those numbers could and should be much worse. That’s because the Illini are allowing almost 500 YPG and over 6 YPP to opposing offenses this season. Those numbers usually equate to many more points on the board than they have been giving up. On top of that, we’re talking about Kent, Western Illinois and South Florida doing that damage against the Illinois defense. PSU’s offense is on a whole different level. In last week’s 25-19 loss to USF, the Illini defense allowed 626 yards however the Bulls shot themselves in the foot with 3 turnovers, 13 penalties, and 3 missed field goals. Needless to say, USF should have had many more points in that game. The Illinois offense has actually been OK this year. They’ve put up 34,31, and 19 points. Their starting QB AJ Bush should be back this week and even if he doesn’t return his back up Rivers had a decent game last week and was able to get a game under his belt. Either way, we don’t think the Illinois offense will have to do a whole lot for this game to push over the total. PSU has the capability of getting to 50 by themselves. We look for some 2nd half success from the IU offense when the game is most likely out of hand. While we expect Penn State to score a lot, we simply don’t trust laying 4+ TD’s with PSU here, and feel the OVER is the much better play.