MLB Betting News and Notes Thursday, September 14th, 2017

MLB Knowledge

National League

Braves @ Nationals
Foltynewicz is 0-6, 8.07 in his last six starts; his last three starts stayed under. Atlanta is 6-9 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 8-13-6

Roark is 2-1, 3.65 in his last four starts; under is 9-2 in his last 11 starts. Washington is 6-6 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 13-11-2

Braves won their last four games; over is 6-1-1 in their last eight games overall. Washington won six of last nine games; under is 4-2-1 in their last seven home games.

Marlins @ Phillies
Urena is 4-1, 3.26 in his last seven starts; under is 6-3-2 in his last 11. Miami is 10-2 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 13-8-3

Thompson is 0-2, 8.57 in his last four starts (over 3-2). Phillies are 1-2 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 2-2-1

Marlins lost 14 of last 16 games; over is 6-1 in their last seven. Philly won three of last four games; over is 5-3 in their last eight games.

Mets @ Cubs
Lugo is 1-2, 5.58 in his last six starts; over is 9-3-1 in his last 13 starts. New York is 5-4 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 7-4-3

Tseng makes his big league debut here; he was 6-1, 1.80 in nine AAA starts this season.

Mets lost their last three games; over is 11-4-2 in their last 17 games. Cubs lost six of last ten games; over is 3-1 in their last four games.

Reds @ Cardinals
Garrett is 0-5, 11.86 in his last seven starts; over is 6-2 in his last eight. Reds are 2-6 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 3-9-1

Weaver is 5-0, 1.71 in his last five starts (over 3-3). St Louis is 2-1 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 4-1-1

Reds lost six of last eight road games (under 5-2-1). St Louis won eight of last ten games; under is 7-3 in their last ten home games.

Rockies @ Diamondbacks
Bettis is 2-2, 5.24 in six starts this season (under 5-1). Colorado split his two road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 2-3-1

Godley is 2-0, 3.32 in his last three starts; under is 9-5-2 in his last 16. Arizona is 5-3 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 10-8-4

Rockies won eight of their last ten games; over is 7-1-1 in their last nine games. Arizona lost four of last six games; over is 6-2-2 in their last ten home games.

American League

White Sox @ Tigers
Shields is 1-2, 4.29 in his last six starts; under is 5-2 in his last seven. Chicago is 2-6 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 4-11-3

Bell is 0-1, 7.27 in two starts this year (over 2-0). Detroit lost his only home start— their first 5-inning record with him: 0-1-1

White Sox won four of last five games; over is 4-2-1 in their last seven games. Chicago is 7-16 in road series openers. Detroit lost 11 of last 13 games; over is 8-2 in their last ten home games. Tigers are 1-8 in last nine home series openers.

A’s @ Red Sox
Gossett is 1-2, 5.06 in his last four starts (over 3-1). Oakland is 3-6 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 5-8-1

Pomeranz is 5-1, 3.00 in his last seven starts; over is 4-2 in his last six starts. Boston is 11-3 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 17-11

A’s won six of their last seven games; over is 10-1 in their last 11 games. Boston won five of last seven games; over is 4-1 in their last five games.

Royals @ Indians
Junis is 4-0, 2.48 in his last six starts; under is 3-1-1 in his last five. Royals are 4-2 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 7-4-1

Tomlin is 6-0, 2.45 in his last seven starts; under is 4-2 in his last six starts. Cleveland is 6-6 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 9-10-4

Royals won three of last five games; over is 6-1 in their last seven road games. KC is 11-12 in road series openers. Cleveland won its last 21 games; under is 15-5 in their last 20 home games. Indians won their last nine home series openers.

Baltimore @ New York
Miley is 2-3, 3.95 in his last five starts (under 5-0). Baltimore is 9-8 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 12-15-2

Tanaka is 3-1, 4.32 in his last four starts; over is 4-1 in his last five starts. New York is 8-5 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 14-11-2

Orioles lost six of last seven games; their last six games stayed under. Baltimore is 9-14 in road series openers. New York won four of last five games (under 4-1). NY is 14-8 in home series openers.

Mariners @ Rangers
Hernandez is making his first start since July 31; he is 0-1, 4.50 in his last three starts. Under is 4-1 in his last five starts. Seattle is 2-3 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 6-6-1

Cashner is 2-0, 1.71 in his last three starts; over is 3-1 in his last four. Texas is 6-4 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 15-6-3

Mariners lost six of their last eight road games; eight of their last nine games overall stayed under. Texas lost five of last seven games; over is 12-4-1 in their last 17 games.

Blue Jays @ Twins
Anderson is 1-1, 3.06 in three starts this year (under 3-0). Blue Jays lost his only road start— their first 5-inning record with him: 1-0-2

Berrios is 1-2, 4.44 in his last four starts (under 14-7-1). Minnesota is 8-1 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 12-7-3

Blue Jays won four of last five games; under is 9-2-1 in their last 12 games. Toronto is 6-11 in last 17 road series openers. Minnesota won five of last seven games; over is 6-3 in their last nine home games. Twins are 13-11 in home series openers.

Astros @ Angels
Peacock is 1-0, 2.12 in his last three starts; over is 7-4 in his last 11 starts. Houston is 7-3 in his road starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 13-3-2

Nolasco is 0-1, 5.40 in his last four starts; over is 6-3-1 in his last ten. Angels are 5-9 in his home starts— their first 5-inning record with him: 9-16-4

Astros lost five of their last six games, five of which went over the total. Angels lost four of last six games, five of which stayed under.

Record with this pitcher starting

Atl-Wsh: Foltynewicz 13-14; Roark 16-10
Mia-Phil: Urena 16-8; Thompson 2-3
NY-Chi: Lugo 8-6; Tseng 0-0
Cin-StL: Garrett 4-9; Weaver 5-1
Colo-Az: Bettis 3-3; Godley 13-9

American League
Chi-Det: Shields 7-11; Bell 0-2
A’s-Bos: Gossett 5-9; Pomeranz 19-9
Balt-NY: Miley 15-14; Tanaka 14-13
KC-Clev: Junis 9-3; Tomlin 11-12
Sea-Tex: Hernandez 7-6; Cashner 12-12
Tor-Minn: Anderson 1-2; Berrios 12-10
Hst-LA: Peacock 12-6; Nolasco 10-19

Pitchers allowing a run in first inning

National League
Atl-Wsh: Foltynewicz 4-27; Roark 10-26
Mia-Phil: Urena 4-24; Thompson 2-5
NY-Chi: Lugo 4-14; Tseng 0-0
Cin-StL: Garrett 6-13; Weaver 1-6
Colo-Az: Bettis 2-6; Godley 4-22

American League
Chi-Det: Shields 6-18; Bell 2-2
A’s-Bos: Gossett 2-14; Pomeranz 8-28
Balt-NY: Miley 11-29; Tanaka 11-27
KC-Clev: Junis 3-12; Tomlin 7-23
Sea-Tex: Hernandez 7-13; Cashner 6-24
Tor-Minn: Anderson 1-3; Berrios 6-22
Hst-LA: Peacock 2-18; Nolasco 12-29

Interleague

Interleague play
NL @ AL– 83-56 AL, favorites -$36
AL @ NL– 72-67 NL, favorites +$35
Total: 150-128 AL, favorites -$1

Totals in interleague games
NL @ AL: Over 70-67-4
AL @ NL: Over 74-59-7
Total: Over 144-126-11

Armadillosports.com

MLB Betting Picks & Tips
By Adam Burke
Bangthebook.com

Chicago at Detroit (-125); Total: 10

The hottest ticket in baseball is a seat for today’s game at Comerica Park, which can be found on StubHub for the impressive price of $2. The White Sox and Tigers are just looking for this season to end and end as quickly as possible. James Shields takes the mound for the White Sox against Chad Bell for the Tigers. The Tigers had something to play for against the Indians early in the week, but they were unable to win any of the three games and managed just three runs in the three-game set. They also played a lot of bad defense.

So, we head into this Motown Matinee looking to play anyone and anything but the Tigers. Brad Ausmus will be unemployed soon and the rebuild coming in Detroit will be painstaking. There’s a difference between being bad and not caring. The White Sox are bad, but still seem to care for first-year skipper Rick Renteria. The Tigers are bad and don’t seem to care.

Purely from a motivational/situational angle, my focus is on the White Sox. Chicago can get out of the AL Central basement in this series, which would be considered a win for them. James Shields, amazingly, still gets guaranteed money next season, but he’d still like to string together a couple good starts to feel better about himself going into the winter months.

I understand why Detroit is favored here with home field and with how awful Shields has been for the last two seasons, but I’d still take the White Sox here.

Miami (-125) at Philadelphia; Total: 9.5

Major regression candidate Jose Urena takes the mound for the Marlins as they wrap up their series with the Phillies. It will be young right-hander Jake Thompson for the hosts. Urena owns a 3.61 ERA with a 4.98 FIP and a 5.23 xFIP. He’s worked 147 innings with a well below average strikeout rate, but he’s gotten fortunate on batted balls and in leverage spots with a .244 BABIP against and a 78.9 percent LOB%. The weird thing is that Urena has actually gotten even better at staving off regression. Since July 31, he has an 85.5 percent LOB%, despite a lower strikeout rate than what he has for the full season. Maybe he truly is just inducing a ton of weak contact. After all, he has allowed just 38 hits in his last 46.2 innings.

Urena’s average exit velocity against is just 85.2 mph. Of his 456 batted balls, only 29.8 percent of them have gone out at 95+ mph. That puts him in the top third of pitchers in terms of exit velocity against. But, then, Urena is also 11th in barreled balls, which means balls that have a batting average probability of .500 or higher and a slugging percentage probability of 1.500 or higher. Even still, Urena has done a great job of limiting hard contact. As I’ve mentioned in the past, contact quality is something that I think could be the next frontier of handicapping and something that I will study a lot over the winter to see if I can find correlations and actionable intelligence.

Jake Thompson has been pretty bad this season across Triple-A and the big leagues. He posted a 5.25/4.40/4.59 in 22 Triple-A starts and has a 5.23/6.38/5.75 in 31 MLB innings. There isn’t much to like in this profile at all, with subpar command and control. I’d be thinking about an over here. At this point, individual players are looking to pad their individual statistics on some of these bad teams. Between Urena’s signs of regression and Thompson’s ugly profile, runs could be in the works in Philly.

Kansas City at Cleveland (-210); Total: 9

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Indians’ streak ends tonight. Their weakest starter, Josh Tomlin, is on the mound. The AL streak is in the bag. I kind of wonder what sort of lineup we see from the Indians. They want to find a way to clinch the division at home and control their own destiny if they can push this thing out to 25, but it wouldn’t shock me to see some big names take a seat after setting the record.

I like the stuff profile for Jake Junis. It’s going to be a rainy, grey, ugly day in Cleveland, so the crowd isn’t going to be as invested or energized. It may just feel like a run-of-the-mill weeknight game in September. Junis has pitched well since coming back from the minors with a 3.26 ERA, a 2.71 FIP, and a 3.74 xFIP in 38.2 innings of work. He has a 37/3 K/BB ratio in those six starts.

I think 21 felt like *the* streak, since the others are from 80+ years ago. I’d look to gamble on the Royals today. I think they win this game more often than the line would indicate.

It’s a small card today with only a few games that I’m interested in. That will probably be the case here in the second half of September with inflated lines and questionable motivations. Keep it simple the rest of the way.

Red-hot Yankees host Orioles
By: StatFox.com

The Orioles will be hoping to keep their slim playoff hopes alive with a victory over the Yankees on Thursday.

Baltimore has really been disappointing as of late, as the team had lost six straight before beating Toronto 2-1 on Wednesday. The Orioles are now 4.5 games back in the AL wild card race, so they know that they need to get hot soon. If they can’t rattle off four or five wins in a row at some point in the next week or two then their season is over. The Yankees, meanwhile, are making a late push to take the AL East right now. They have narrowed the gap in the division down to three, but they’re going to need to be virtually flawless the rest of the way. Boston is not the type of team that is going to lose seven or eight out of 10, so it will take a significant hot streak by New York in order to make it happen. What should be encouraging for the Yankees is the fact that they are 9-6 against Baltimore this season and 5-1 against the team when playing at Yankee Stadium. The starters in this Thursday night game are set to be LHP Wade Miley (8-12, 4.96 ERA, 132 K) for Baltimore and RHP Masahiro Tanaka (11-11, 4.82 ERA, 165 K) for New York. The edge would appear to go to Tanaka on paper, but the righty has been absolutely miserable this season and the Orioles will not be fearful of facing him. Baltimore also happens to be 36-19 against the money line after allowing three runs or fewer in two straight games over the past two seasons.

The Orioles are hoping to take the first game in this series and Wade Miley is going to be leaned on heavily to shut down the Yankees here. Miley has allowed three or fewer earned runs in seven of his past eight starts heading into this one, so he should be pretty confident when he takes the ball. Miley has also had success against New York this year, as he has a 1.80 ERA in 10 innings of work over two starts against the Yankees. If he can give Baltimore five or so innings of two-run ball then the team would be in pretty good shape here. All the Orioles can hope for is a chance to face a struggling New York bullpen late in a close game. On offense, 2B Jonathan Schoop could be in for a big game here. Schoop is just 4-for-20 against Tanaka in his career, but he does have two homers and five RBI against him. And playing inside Yankee Stadium, he’ll certainly have a good chance of going yard again.

The Yankees are on fire heading into this game, as they have now won nine of their past 13 games. New York is really in a groove at the moment, but the team must get a solid performance out of Tanaka here. The righty was shelled in his last trip to the mound, as he allowed seven earned runs on eight hits in only four innings of work against the Rangers on Sep. 8. He had, however, allowed two or fewer earned runs in five of his previous six starts before that one. So it’s possible that the Tanaka of old shows up on Thursday. As for this Yankees offense, one guy that might be able to provide an unexpected spark is 3B Todd Frazier. Frazier has hit Miley very hard in his career, as he is 5-for-17 with a double and a homer against the lefty in this head-to-head matchup. Frazier has not played well since being traded to the Yankees, but perhaps he’ll take Miley yard here.