Jim Feist

The Phillies are fresh off a sweep of 1st place Chicago and now begin a 3-game set with the Padres. Vincent Velasquez gets the start tonight for the Phils with a 3-6 record and 4.30 ERA. Velasquez has been very good of late, allowing 7 runs over his last five starts (22 2/3 innings). The Padres have lost three of their last four games. They will turn to Chris Paddock tonight. Paddock has a 7-5 record with a 3.26 ERA this season. Despite the Padres having a slightly better starter on the hill, I like the win streak the Phillies are on. They only trail in the Wild Card race by one-game, so they are making a move. Play Philadelphia.

The Giants exploded in week one of the preseason with 31-points while Chicago did what most teams do, struggle on offense. Eli Manning should see more playing time this week for the Giants as well as Mitch Trubisky for the Bears. Chicago was a dead under last year in the preseason and they just got under in week one. Giants QB Daniel Jones had a great first week completing five passes in a row and throwing for a TD. Jones likely will see most of the playing time in this game with Eli getting in some snaps. Giants -1.5 or 2 looks like a good play to me. Play the Giants.

Not too often you see preseason totals in the 40's, but that's what we see here today currently at 43 or 43.5. That should tell you what the oddsmaker think about this game. The reason? Well it likely has something to do with the QB battle between Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen for the Dolphins. Both will want to shine and both will likely get time with the first unit offense. When you couple that against the 2nd, 3rd or 4th string Bucs defense, we could see Miami get lots of points here. In fact, you may even see the first unit offense play the entire first half so that the coaches can properly evaluate both QB's. That is pretty rare for a week 2 of the preseason. That's really All I need to know here in this game. I like the OVER as the Dolphins should put up some decent points. Play OVER.