For the Chicago Cubs Tyquan Lewis Jersey , the last few days have felt like Christmas in July.
The team has won five games in a row and will try to stretch it to six on Wednesday afternoon in a Fourth of July matinee.
“Everything is believable,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon told reporters when asked about his team’s recent hot streak. “We believe in everything right now. Santa Claus is absolutely true.
“When you get to that point and you get that kind of confidence, you don’t want to do anything to nick it.”
Chicago (48-35) has climbed 13 games above .500 to match its high-water mark. The Cubs have a chance to set a new high when they host the Detroit Tigers (38-49) in the finale of a two-game series at Wrigley Field.
All of the Cubs’ five wins during the streak have been in come-from-behind fashion.
“One of our concepts is to score first,” Maddon said. “One of our concepts is to win the inning. But I think this is maybe the residue of our starting pitching not being what it probably is. We’ve given up more runs early from our starters that we didn’t anticipate happening.
“But it’s a tightly knit group. They’re there to pick everybody else up. So, OK, they’ve scored a couple runs. There’s no quit. The chatter in the dugout is great, all that stuff is outstanding. I just think that the come-from-behind component right now is based on our starters not pitching to their capabilities yet.”
That said, the Cubs will look for a solid start from left-hander Jose Quintana (6-6, 4.31 ERA) in his 17th start of the season. The 29-year-old has allowed three earned runs or fewer in nine of his past 12 starts.
In 18 career starts against the Tigers, Quintana is 5-5 with a 4.37 ERA. The Colombia native has walked 26 and struck out 82 in 111 1/3 innings.
The Tigers will counter with veteran left-hander Francisco Liriano (3-4, 3.99 ERA), who is scheduled to make his 13th start of the season. The burly southpaw carries a career record of 105-103 with a 4.14 ERA in 335 career games.
More than a few teams could be scouting the 34-year-old Liriano as the trade deadline approaches. He is coming off a quality start against the Toronto Blue Jays but has not logged a victory since April 17 against the Baltimore Orioles.
In 14 career starts against the Cubs, Liriano is 5-4 with a 3.27 ERA. He most recently faced the club in 2016, when he posted an 0-2 record with a 7.63 ERA in three starts with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Toronto Blue Jays.
The Tigers could turn to a six-man rotation in the next couple weeks Nyheim Hines Jersey , which is fine with Liriano.
“I think that would work,” Liriano said recently to mlive.com. “It wouldn’t bother me at all. I don’t know about any other guys. (Blaine) Hardy has been doing a great job, so it’s hard to put him in the bullpen with the way he’s throwing the ball right now. I think that’s a great idea.”
Injured Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant (shoulder) is not expected to play Wednesday. He is hitting .280 with nine home runs and 36 RBIs in 66 games this season.
When a New Jersey racetrack and a casino start taking bets on sporting events Thursday, they will be part of an industry primed for tremendous growth, much of it taking place on smartphones, according to a panel of national gambling experts.
Speaking Wednesday at the east Coast Gaming Congress at Harrah’s casino in Atlantic City, a panel of sports betting and technology company representatives predicted the fastest-growing segment of sports betting will be bets made on smartphones as games are being played.
While bettors always will want to bet on the outcome of a game before it begins, many also want to predict particular plays or developments within a game, the panelists said.
So in addition to wagering on whether the New York Yankees would beat the Boston Red Sox, many gamblers also would want to bet on whether Yankee Aaron Judge would hit a home run just as he arrives at the plate, or how many batters Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale would strike out in a particular inning.
Such betting is the main element of growth in the European sports betting market.
”The growth of in-play has been a huge driver,” said Neale Deeley, vice president of Sportradar US, a data company that works with more than 70 sports federations and leagues around the world on fraud detection Jacoby Brissett Jersey , including the NBA, NHL and Major League Soccer.
”Mobile and in-play were absolutely made for each other,” added Lee Richardson, CEO of Spectrum Gaming Group, a gambling consulting firm near Atlantic City. ”It’s what customers want to do.”
The forum came a day before New Jerseyans were to begin placing their first legal sports bets. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy was to place the state’s first legal sports bet at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at Monmouth Park, a horse racing track near the Jersey shore in Oceanport.
Thirty minutes later and about 70 miles to the south, Atlantic City’s Borgata casino will start taking sports bets.
No other New Jersey racetrack or casino has announced plans to begin taking bets within the next few days, although most if not all are expected to do so eventually. The Golden Nugget casino and the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, near New York City say they’ll have sports betting operations up and running by the start of football season in September.
New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement issued its regulations for sports betting providers Wednesday, clearing the last major obstacle for it to begin.
The state won a U.S. Supreme Court case last month clearing the way for all 50 states to offer legal sports betting if they choose.
Experts at the conference cautioned against unduly optimistic projections of sports betting revenue and tax money for states; the activity accounts for about 2 percent of Nevada casinos’ total winnings. In New Jersey, Moody’s has estimated sports betting could initially bring in $108 million, or about 4 percent of the state’s annual gambling revenue.