Stephen Nover

Tampa Bay finally has climbed above .500 this season by virtue of winning nine of its last 13 games.

The Rays shouldn't be this big of an underdog - if an underdog at all - to the disappointing 19-23 Blue Jays and Chris Bassitt.

Bassitt is 3-5 with a 5.06 ERA and 1.55 WHIP.

The Rays have the better offense and are swinging hot bats averaging 5.5 runs in their last six games.

Tyler Alexander will either start for Tampa Bay, or pitch behind an opener. Alexander has a 2.00 ERA and 0.89 WHIP in three all-time starts against the Blue Jays. The Rays' bullpen is better with the return to health of Pete Fairbanks.

The Blue Jays rank 28th in runs and homers. Their best offensive players have yet to get going.

Remember that 17-3 streak the Twins were on? It's over. The Yankees finished that off sweeping Minnesota, outscoring the Twins, 14-1, in three games.

I'm going to go against the Twins here as they open a series against the Guardians, who have a better record than Minnesota. Only the Yankees and Orioles have a better record in the American League than Cleveland.

The pitching matchup is Triston McKenzie vs Simeon Woods Richardson. I like McKenzie better. He has a 2.28 ERA in his past five starts. Richardson couldn't hold a 7-1 lead in his last start in a 10-8 loss to the Blue Jays last Saturday.

Cleveland is 10-3 in its last 13 home games, slugging 18 homers in those games. The Guardians have the top bullpen ERA in the majors at 2.44 and their deep relief pitching corps is rested as the team was idle yesterday.

Don't look for the Storm to be so inept scoring-wise as they were during an opening-night, 83-70, home loss to the Lynx this past Tuesday. Now we have a quick rematch. Expect more scoring.

The revamped Storm added Skylar Diggins-Smith and Nneka Ogwumike to go with Jewell Loyd and Ezi Magbegor. That's a lot of offense. The Storm should do much better in the scoring column now that they've played a game.

Seattle shot 37.2 percent from the floor, made only one of nine 3-pointers and committed 17 turnovers in the loss to Minnesota. Loyd, who led the WNBA in scoring last year at 24.7 points, scored just 10 points while missing 16 of 19 shots from the floor.

The Storm know the Lynx's defense better now. Look for them to come out aggressive and not overthink things, like they did in the opener.

Minnesota didn't have a good perimeter game either. The Lynx were just 7-of-24 from 3-point range and only got to the free throw line nine times. Yet they still scored 83 points because of the inside dominance of superstar Napheesa Collier and Alanna Smith. The two combined to make 17 of 34 shots from the floor. Collier and Smith should continue to score in the paint while the Lynx's guards should do better from 3-point range.

I'm going with the Zig-Zag theory here, figuring the Pacers to tie this series at 3-3 after being embarrassed, 121-91, at New York this past Tuesday. 
The Pacers are 5-0 at home in the playoffs. This includes a pair of victories against the Knicks with an average winning margin of 18.5 points. 

The Knicks are extremely short-handed with Julius Randle, Bojan Bogdanovic, Mitchell Robinson and now OG Anunoby all ruled out. Jalen Brunson is playing hurt. The Knicks are effectively down to just seven players. The Pacers' bench has been taking advantage. The Knicks are wearing down this late in the season and as this series goes deeper. 

So the Knicks just might pull the plug on this game if it gets out of hand looking ahead to Game 7 at home on Sunday.