MLB betting trends, odds and predictions for Monday, September 11th, 2017 from various handicappers and websites
MLB Knowledge
National League
Pirates @ Brewers
Brault allowed three runs in five IP (91 PT) in his first ’17 start, a 4-3 win over the Cubs. Pirates’ first 5-inning record with him: 0-1
Woodruff is 1-1, 1.52 in four starts this year (under 4-0). Brewers are 0-2 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 2-1-1
Pirates lost their last five games; under is 5-1 in their last six. Bucs are 1-6 in last seven road series openers. Milwaukee just swept Cubs three games; they’re 4-1 in last five home games. Under is 5-2-2 in their last nine games. Brewers are 7-3 in last ten home series openers.
Rockies @ Diamondbacks
Gray is 3-2, 2.73 in his last five starts; under is 3-1 in his last four. He is 1-1, 4.09 vs Arizona this season. Colorado is 5-4 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 9-6-1
Greinke is 2-0, 2.29 in his last three starts; under is 5-0-1 in his last six starts. He is 2-1, 3.62 in four starts vs Colorado this year. Arizona is 16-2 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 17-6-5
Rockies won six of their last seven games; their last six games went over. Colorado is 4-11 in last 15 road series openers. Arizona is 14-2 in its last 16 games, 16-7 in home series openers. Over is 5-1-1 in their last seven home games.
Dodgers @ Giants
Maeda is 1-2, 5.85 in his last four starts (under 3-0-1). Dodgers are 6-7 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 14-6-3
Stratton is 2-1, 1.99 in his last four starts (under 4-2). Giants are 2-0 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 1-4-1
Dodgers lost 10 games in row, 15 of their last 16 games; over is 8-2 in their last ten games. LA is 12-3 in last 15 road series openers. Giants are 4-12 in last 16 games; over is 4-0-1 in their last five. SF is 3-13 in last 16 home series openers.
American League
Orioles @ Blue Jays
Jimenez is 0-2, 10.39 in his last four starts; under is 4-2 in his last six road starts. Baltimore is 4-7 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 8-11-3
Estrada is 2-0, 4.50 in his last three starts; Jays scored 23 runs in the three games. Over is 4-1 in his last five starts. He is 2-0, 3.16 in four starts vs Baltimore this year. Jays are 6-5 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 11-15-3
Orioles lost their last four games; under is 6-3 in their last nine games. Baltimore is 9-13 in road series openers. Toronto lost six of last nine home games but won last two; under is 6-2-1 in their last nine games. Blue Jays are 4-10 in last 14 home series openers.
Tigers @ Indians
Boyd is 0-4, 8.38 in his last six starts; over is 7-3-2 in his last 12 starts. He is 1-1, 2.41 in three starts vs Cleveland this season. Detroit is 6-5 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 5-10-6
Carrasco is 4-1, 1.90 in his last six starts; over is 7-3 in his last ten starts. He is 3-1, 2.14 in five starts vs Detroit this year. Indians are 8-4 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 19-7-2
Tigers lost 8 of last 10 games; under is 7-1-1 in their last nine road games. Detroit is 6-10 in last 16 road series openers. Cleveland won its last 18 games; under is 13-4 in their last 17 home games. Tribe won its last eight home series openers.
New York vs Tampa Bay (@ Citi Field in NYC- Rays are home team)
Sabathia is 2-0, 3.33 in his last four starts; under is 5-1 in his last six starts. He is 2-0, 3.77 in three starts vs Tampa Bay this season. NY is 8-5 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 12-10-1
Odorizzi is 2-0, 2.31 in his last two starts; over is 11-4 in his last 15 starts. Tampa Bay is 4-8 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 11-9-4
This series is in the Mets’ stadium because of the hurricane. New York won six of last eight games; eight of their last nine road games went over. Tampa Bay lost three of last four games; over is 4-2 in their last six games. Rays won five of last six series openers.
Mariners @ Rangers
Miranda is 1-0, 4.50 in his last four starts; over is 9-4 in his last 13 starts. Seattle is 10-4 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 15-10-3
Hamels is 0-2, 8.81 in his last three starts; over is 4-1-1 in his last six starts. He is 0-0, 6.55 in two starts vs Seattle this season. Rangers are 6-2 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 15-2-2
Mariners lost their last five road games; their last six games overall stayed under. Seattle is 10-3 in last 13 road series openers. Texas lost three of last four games; over is 11-2-1 in their last 14 games. Rangers are 12-6 in last 18 home series openers.
White Sox @ Royals
Lopez is 0-3, 5.51 in his last three starts (under 3-1). Chicago lost his only road start— their first 5-inning record with him: 1-3
Hammel is 3-1, 4.68 in his last four starts; KC scored 27 runs in those four games. Over is 5-1 in his last six starts. Royals are 5-8 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 9-12-7
Chicago lost five of last seven games; over is 4-1-1 in their last six games. White Sox are 6-16 in road series openers. Royals are 5-3 in their last eight games; over is 7-3 in their last 10 games. Kansas City is 1-4 in last five home series openers.
Record with this pitcher starting
Pitt-Mil: Brault 1-0; Woodruff 2-2
Colo-Az: Gray 10-6; Greinke 20-8
LA-SF: Maeda 15-8; Stratton 3-3
American League
Balt-Tor: Jimenez 11-11; Estrada 13-16
Det-Clev: Boyd 8-13; Carrasco 20-8
NY-TB: Sabathia 15-8; Odorizzi 10-14
Sea-Tex: Miranda 15-13; Hamels 11-8
Chi-KC: Lopez 1-3; Hammel 10-18
Pitchers allowing a run in first inning
National League
Pitt-Mil: Brault 1-1; Woodruff 0-4
Colo-Az: Gray 4-16; Greinke 3-28
LA-SF: Maeda 8-23; Stratton 1-6
American League
Balt-Tor: Jimenez 7-22; Estrada 10-29
Det-Clev: Boyd 5-21; Carrasco 5-28
NY-TB: Sabathia 6-23; Odorizzi 7-24
Sea-Tex: Miranda 12-28; Hamels 8-28
Chi-KC: Lopez 1-4; Hammel 5-28
Interleague
Interleague play
NL @ AL– 81-56 AL, favorites -$236
AL @ NL– 72-67 NL, favorites +$35
Total: 148-128 AL, favorites -$201
Totals in interleague games
NL @ AL: Over 69-66-4
AL @ NL: Over 74-59-7
Total: Over 143-125-11
Armadillosports.com
MLB Betting Picks & Tips
By Adam Burke
Bangthebook.com
Baltimore at Toronto (-120); Total: 10
Time is a factor for the Baltimore Orioles. The Toronto Blue Jays are just trying to scrape some positives out of an injury-riddled season. It’s sort of amazing that a team with Ubaldo Jimenez in the starting rotation can be in the playoff hunt, but the Orioles are in that spot. Though, “being in the playoff hunt” means that the Orioles are three games out with four teams to leapfrog to sneak into that one-game playoff with the Yankees.
Jimenez takes the hill tonight as the Orioles look to bounce back from being Cleveland’s latest victim. Jimenez has a 6.80/5.55/4.62 pitcher slash on the season in 129.2 innings of work. He has allowed a career-high 29 home runs and, if you’ll recall, this is a guy that used to pitch for the Rockies. He has had better strikeout fortunes this season and has issued fewer walks, but his command has been non-existent and he has been poor at stranding runners again.
The guy on the other side, Marco Estrada, has experienced about four years of regression in his 29 starts. Estrada posted BABIPs of .262, .257, .216, and .234 over the last four seasons. His ERA/xFIP discrepancies over the last two seasons were 3.13/4.9 and 3.48/4.64. This season, he has a 5.00 ERA with a 5.05 xFIP. It has been ugly for Estrada, who has the highest HR/9 that he has had over the last three years, but has a .305 BABIP against to go along with it.
Jimenez will be making his first start since August 30. He’s allowed 17 runs on 23 hits over his last three starts, so he’s not exactly turning things around. Estrada just worked seven shutout against Boston after allowing six runs on 10 hits over five innings to the Orioles on August 31. I certainly understand making Toronto a small home favorite here, but I find the value side to be on Baltimore. The Indians dominated the Baltimore lineup by throwing a lot of curveballs and cutters and sliders to the right-handed-heavy lineup. Righties are batting .280/.361/.482 with Estrada’s reverse platoon splits because he doesn’t have much that runs away from righties. His changeup is more effective against lefties.
It’s an ugly game either way, but Baltimore is my preferred side.
New York (-130) vs. Tampa Bay; Total: 8.5
Yankees fans were going to be at this series either way, with a bunch of retiree Yankee fans in Tampa and surrounding areas, but they won’t have to go far for this series. With Hurricane Irma dropping lots of rain and creating other problems in Florida, this series will be played at Citi Field. So, it’ll be a short trek from the Bronx to Queens to support the Yankees for those that want to attend. We’ll probably see skeleton crowds for this series, though.
CC Sabathia and Jake Odorizzi are the listed starters. Sabathia has a 3.91 ERA with a 4.62 FIP and a 4.31 xFIP on the year in his 126.2 innings of work. Sabathia has become an extreme ground ball guy in an effort to compensate for the loss of velocity and the decline in stuff. If he works five or more innings tonight, he will cross the 3,300-inning mark. Only Bartolo Colon has thrown more innings and Sabathia and Colon are the only two over 3,000. The last guy to cross that mark was Mark Buehrle.
Sabathia had been in a nice groove before Baltimore touched him up for five runs on eight hits in 5.1 innings last time out. Sabathia allowed three homers in that start and has now allowed nine homers over his last seven outings. The nice thing for Sabathia and all the Yankees starters is that there isn’t a whole lot expected of them with the New York bullpen.
Jake Odorizzi has a 4.58 ERA with a 5.76 FIP and a 5.35 xFIP. Home runs have been Odorizzi’s biggest problem. The extreme fly ball right-hander has allowed 28 HR in 123.2 innings of work. He allowed 29 in 187.2 innings last season. He just worked 6.2 shutout against the Twins in his best start in quite some time, but most of his outings have been rocky this year.
The Yankees are my pick today. The Rays have some issues with lefties. The Yankees also have a bit of an advantage in that they don’t have to travel as far for this game and the Rays, even though the storm hasn’t done a lot of damage in Tampa, still have some distractions and worries. But, this is a fade of Odorizzi against the Yankees offense, which has found its stride again.
Seattle at Texas (-130); Total: 10
How much does the market want to fade Cole Hamels? Enough that influential money has come in on Mariners left-hander Ariel Miranda. Miranda has a 4.72 ERA with a 5.57 FIP and a 5.34 xFIP in his own right, so there are some signs of regression there with the left-hander. Miranda has allowed 35 home runs on the season in 156.1 innings of work. He’s an extreme fly ball pitcher that will never be appreciated by the advanced metrics, but he hasn’t done much to earn that respect anyway.
Cole Hamels has a 4.03 ERA with a 4.56 FIP and a 4.92 xFIP. His strikeout rate is way down and his command isn’t what we’ve seen in the past. Hamels has been limited to 120.2 innings of work. It isn’t a very fun profile to look at, especially for a guy that had been one of the league’s best and most consistent starters for several years before this point.
I get the move. I won’t have a play here unless the Rangers move into range. Miranda doesn’t impress me either.
Underdog Pick of the Day: For those in search of an underdog, I’d consider the White Sox in the +155 or +160 range against the Royals. Reynaldo Lopez looked sharp in the last of his four Major League starts. There’s a fun little arsenal there and he’ll be a big part of the White Sox roster going forward. Jason Hammel isn’t very good and probably shouldn’t be a -170 favorite against anybody. The Royals are a better team, there’s no doubt about that, but the White Sox may have an edge in the starting pitcher department, so they can keep this close and it will come down to late-inning sequencing.
MLB Daily Line Drive
Covers.com
Double-Play Picks
New York Yankees at Tampa Bay Rays (+125, 8.5)
The Yankees and Rays have been relocated to Citi Field in Queens due to Hurricane Irma in Florida. This is a very weird situation for both teams as these will be home games for the Rays, however the crowd in attendance will be mostly Yankees' fans - perhaps not too weird considering the usual crowds at Tropicana Field.
CC Sabathia will get the ball for the Yankees in Game 1. Sabathia has been very good all season, but especially good on the road (7-3, 3.25 ERA). Since this may not have the true feel of a road game we'll just mention the fact that the Yankees have won his last eight starts against the Rays over the last three seasons, including 3-0 in 2017.
Jake Odorizzi has looked better recently (against three light-hitting clubs) but overall his season has been rough with a team win/loss of 10-14 and an ERA of 4.58. He's also been worse in games that are technically home games with a team win/loss of 4-9 and an ERA of 4.71.
We riding the hot hands in this one. The Yankees have won seven of the last 10 meetings with the Rays and two of the streakiest hitters in all of baseball (Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez) both had multi-homer games yesterday in New York's 16-7 victory over the Texas Rangers.
Pick: Yankees -135
Seattle Mariners at Texas Rangers (-135, 10.5)
The Mariners and Rangers open a four-game series at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas on Monday night.
This pick will strictly be related to the starting pitchers and their situational performance thus far in 2017.
Ariel Miranda gets the away start for the Mariners and he comes into Monday's games with an ERA of 6.16 on the road this season. Tonight will also be his second career start at Globe Life Park - earlier this season he allowed five runs in 5.2 innings of work against the Rangers in an eventual 5-1 loss.
Veteran lefty Cole Hamels gets the ball for the Rangers and he has been dynamite at home all season with a win/loss record of 6-0 (team win/loss of 7-2), an ERA of 3.39, and a WHIP of 1.13 in nine starts. He's been roughed up a bit recently, but three of his last four starts have been on the road and he'll be happy to be back on the bump in Arlington.
Both clubs have visions of catching the Twins for the second wildcard spot in the American League, and the Rangers will get the jump on turning those visions into reality this evening.
Pick: Rangers -135
Yesterday's Picks: 0-2
Season To Date: 137-132-14
Streaking and Slumping Starting Pitchers
Streaking: Carlos Carrasco, Cleveland Indians (14-6, 3.53 ERA, $662)
The Indians are on fire, having won 18 in a row, including sweeps over the Royals, Yankees, Tigers, White Sox, and Orioles. And while ‘Klubot’ is the ace of the staff, Carlos Carrasco has been dominating during this streak.
In Carrasco’s last three starts (all Indians wins), he has thrown 23 innings and allowed two earned runs (0.78 ERA) and 0.65 WHIP. If there is one point in the righty’s game that’s been on point, it would be his control. During this stretch, he has 25 total strike outs and hasn’t given up a free pass.
Carrasco and the Indians are -322 favorites at home today in Game 1 of a series with the Tigers.
Slumping: Ubaldo Jimenez, Baltimore Orioles (5-9, 6.80 ERA, $53)
For a few weeks there it really looked Ubaldo Jimenez had turned his season around, there was a stretch of four starts that he was dealing with 24 innings and only seven runs allowed (2.63 ERA). Now things are as bad ever at the worst possible time, with the Orioles 3-games back of a wildcard spot with 19 games remaining.
In his last three starts, Jimenez is 0-2 with an ERA of 12.75, WHIP of 2.17, and opponents batting average of .438.
Jimenez and the Orioles are in Toronto tonight and are available at +104.
Monday's Top Trends
* Indians are 10-1 in Carlos Carrasco’s last 11 starts vs. Tigers. -322 vs Tigers.
* Rays are 1-11 in Jake Odorizzi’s last 12 starts following a Quality Start in his last appearance. +126 vs. Yankees.
* Mariners are 10-1 in Ariel Miranda’s last 11 starts during game 1 of a series. +120 @ Rangers.
* Diamondbacks are 9-0 in their last 9 vs. a team with a winning record. -188 vs Rockies.
Weather To Keep An Eye On
Lots of clouds in the forecast for today but nowhere is rain expected to affect any ballparks on the schedule.
The most notable wind today will be at Progressive Field in Cleveland where the forecast is calling for 13-10 mile per hour winds at first pitch blowing in from right field. The Tigers are in town to play the Indians and the total for this contest is 8.5.
Winds will also be breezy in San Francisco where the Giants host the Los Angeles Dodgers. The lineups will be treated to a 9-12 mile per hour wind at during the game. The total for tonight’s game is set at 8.