Steve Janus
Yankees -137
Play Against - Home underdogs with a money line of +125 to +175 (CINCINNATI) - with an on base percentage of .393 or better over their last 3 games against opponent starting a pitcher who did not walk a hitter last outing. This system is 51-11 (82%) against the money line since 1997.
Carolina Sports
Rangers +122
Rangers are 5-1 in their last 6 interleague road games vs. a team with a losing record. Rangers are 5-1 in their last 6 vs. National League West. Rangers are 8-3 in their last 11 interleague road games vs. a right-handed starter. Padres are 1-5 in their last 6 interleague games vs. a right-handed starter. Padres are 1-7 in their last 8 interleague home games vs. a team with a losing record
Jack Jones
Rockies +122
It's going to be tough for the Chicago Cubs to come back mentally and physically from their 18-inning game against the New York Yankees on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball last night. It was an epic game, and they're certainly deflated following that 5-4 defeat.
Jake Arrieta has been very hittable this season. He has posted a 4.63 ERA in six starts this season, including a 6.61 ERA and 1.715 WHIP over his last three starts. In his only career start at Colorado, Arrieta gave up 9 runs and 13 hits in 5 innings of a 4-13 loss.
Antonio Senzatela has been a pleasant surprise for the Rockies. He has gone 4-1 with a 2.84 ERA and 1.026 WHIP in six starts this year. The Rockies have gone 5-1 in Senzatela's six starts as well.
The Cubs are 1-5 in Arrieta's last six starts vs. NL West opponents. Colorado is 4-1 in its last five games overall. The Rockies are 8-3 in their last 11 during Game 1 of a series. The Cubs are 7-16 in their last 23 trips to Colorado.
Larry Wallace
Indians vs. Blue Jays
Play: Indians +105
I like the Indians in this match-up against the Blue Jays. Bauer hasn't been the best this year, but his last three starts he is 2-1. Stroman is 0-2 while pitching at home. Indians are a better team than the Blue Jays and it will show today. Indians are 11-7 while playing on the road, while the Blue Jays are 4-8 at home.
Dave Price
Giants +138
We'll take a shot with the struggling San Francisco Giants at an excellent price today against the New York Mets. The Giants are hungry for a victory after losing 3 straight and 6 of their last 8 games overall. Jacob DeGrom has been roughed up a bit of late with a 5.60 ERA and 1.924 WHIP in his last 3 starts. DeGrom allowed 8 earned runs and 14 base runners in 5 innings of a 7-10 loss to the Giants in his most recent start against them. The Mets are hitting just .197 against left-handed starters this season. The Giants are 4-0 in their last 4 road games vs. a team with a home winning % of less than .400. The Mets are 0-7 in their last 7 home games vs. a team with a road winning % of less than .400.
SPORTS WAGERS
CINCINNATI +128 over N. Y. Yankees
In his four starts covering just 15 innings in his rookie season, Rookie Davis has been pounded to the tune of a 7.36 ERA and 2.18 WHIP. Davis has struck out 11 batters but the problem is that he’s walked 10. However, there are some positives in his game. Davis’ first-pitch strike rate is 65%, which indicates a big drop-off in his walks issued is forthcoming. He was also a groundball specialist in his minor league career so getting back to the basics here could go a long way in his progress. Davis, without question, is the second best starter in this game and a much bigger risk than Masahiro Tanaka.
Tanaka comes in with some mediocre numbers to start the year and he’s a pitcher we’ll elaborate on more when the time is right. For this one single game, we’re overlooking the pitching matchup in favor of the situation, which heavily favors the Reds in this series. The Yanks are coming off four successive series against the Red Sox, Orioles, Blue Jays and against the Cubbies at Wrigley this past weekend. New York swept the Cubs but last night’s game went into the wee hours of the morning and was decided about 3:00 AM EST in the 18th inning. After four intense series that the Yanks were extremely jacked up for, capped off by last night’s celebratory win in Chicago, the Yanks figure to exhale here big time. This is one of those very unfavorable spots for a favorite.
The Reds and their fans will be in the opposite mindset of the Yanks and their fans. Cincinnati is off to a great start. The Reds are 17-14 and are coming off a three-game sweep over the Giants. New York is a big draw wherever they go so expect weekend-like crowds in Cincinnati for this set and thus, a fired up atmosphere for the Reds to draw off of. The Reds have speed (Billy Hamilton is the fastest man in baseball), power and consistency in their lineup and they’re riding a five-game winning streak to boot. The better pitcher doesn’t always win and this is one of those times where situation takes precedence over everything else.
Kansas City +134 over TAMPA BAY
Nathan Karns has two quality starts in five tries this season. He also brings a 4.97 ERA into this start. By contrast, Blake Snell brings a 3.45 ERA after six starts into this one. Now, and because the market puts so much emphasis on surface starts (ERA and pitching lines), we get tremendous value on Nathan Karns and his superior under the hood stats.
Nathan Karns has been one of MLB’s unluckiest starters so far with a low 62% strand rate. That is where the ERA damage comes from. However, Karns brings a 3.42 xERA which is the result of am elite 59% groundball rate, a 13% swing and miss rate and 26 K’s in 29 innings. Karns has the highest BAA among starters with four or more starts on balls hit on the ground that find a hole through the infield for a base hit. He’s putting up elite numbers across the board and will now face a bunch of batters that he knows their weaknesses well after pitching for the Rays prior.
Blake Snell’s 3.45 ERA is a complete mirage. Snell’s luck has been all good but he hasn’t been. Snell’s luck driven ERA has been fueled by a low 21% hit rate and high 81% strand rate. His aggregate skills have been terrible, as have his command sub-indicators: 8.4% swing and miss rate, 56% first-pitch strike rate and 44% ball%. In fact, he's throwing balls at a higher rate than any other starter in MLB and it has resulted in 21 walks so far in 27 innings. Very few of those walks have come in to score, which cannot last much longer. Snell’s WHIP of 1.53 (1.80 in his last start) reveals a pitcher that has gotten in and out of jams all season so far. This is truly a case of the market perception being off and it has created a rock solid price on a rock solid pup.
COLORADO -1½ +225 over Chicago
We’re not going to go into a lot of details here regarding the pitchers because it matters not when playing at Coors Field. We are going to commit to playing the underdog all season long at Coors Field on the ALTERNATIVE run line. What that means is that we are playing the remainder of Colorado’s home games this season and we’ll be playing the underdog in each game, whether it’s the Rocks or the opposition and we’ll be playing it regardless of who’s pitching. We’re suggesting that this wager has nothing but big profits in store. With totals being in the 10 to 12½ range daily at this venue, far more games are decided by two runs or more than one run and the underdog wins just as much as the favorite. The pitching matchups rarely matter because even the best get rocked at this park. We’ll keep a running record on this angle all season long.
Year to date:
5-9 - 0.12 units
Mike Rose
San Francisco at New York
Play: 1H Total Under 3.5
The Giants have made themselves awfully comfy in Citi Field where they’ve taken six of the last 10 meetings with the Mets by an average of 4.5 runs per game. Not surprisingly, the over has cashed each of the last five times they squared off in this venue. However, the Mets are allergic to hitting left-handed pitching and the Giants are simply just allergic to hitting at all. As bad as Moore has been of late, he has come out and thrown some gems on occasion. Each of deGrom's home starts to date have played to low scorers. Look for the starting pitchers to rise to the occasion before handing it over to the pen. With that, look for the scoreboard operators to twiddle their thumbs through the first five innings.
Harry Bondi
WASHINGTON +105 over Baltimore
We have the Nationals as an underdog here in two very favorable situations. First off, Washington has been a very profitable bet when coming off a loss this season, going 7-2. Secondly, the team has been wearing out right-handed starters, winning 20 of 29 games this season. Making matters worse for the O’s is they send a struggling Kevin Gausman to the hill. The right-hander has a 8.03 ERA in his last three starts and in three career appearances against the Nats he has an ERA of 5.68.
Bob Balfe
Rays -1.5 +145
The Royals are one of it not the worst teams against left handed pitching and to make things worse are just a bad offensive team. I am not going to take the money line here because it’s just way too high, but I like the run line. If Tampa can hold Kansas City to a low scoring output they should be able to bust this game open and win by two runs and we get positive value with underdog type money.
Drew Martin
San Francisco at New York
Play: New York
Starting pitchers home/road splits are not the be-all, end-all in every handicap but in these case they likely tell enough to take a small position. For San Francisco, LH starter Matt Moore has atrocious overall numbers this season but those stat lines are definitely skewed by his road performances. In his three starts away from AT&T Park this season, Moore has not lasted more than 5 1/3 innings and he has not recorded a game WHIP under 1.88. Combined, Moore’s road numbers read like this: 12 2/3 IP, 23 H, 21 R, 18 ER, 10 K, 8 BB & 4 HR allowed. His road ERA is 12.80, WHIP 2.45, PPI (pitches per inning) 18.8 and he’s allowed 45.6% of the batters he’s faced to reach base. In the glass half full scenario, the Mets have not hit lefties well this season .225 BA & .295 OBP but this figures to be a spot where they could do at least some damage.
The polar opposite of Moore’s road results is Mets RH starter Jacob deGrom’s home starts. In Citi Field thus far, deGrom has tossed a total of 14 innings in two starts posting a 2.08 ERA and 0.69 WHIP while allowing just 18.8% of the batters he’s faced to reach base. San Francisco has struggled offensively vs. RHP (.228 BA &.283 OBP) which is similar to the Mets difficulties against left handers so the lineups seem to negate each other. Starting SS Brandon Crawford’s trip to the 10 day DL on April 26th has really hurt the Giants as they’ve averaged 2.9 runs per game without him and have recorded game BA’s of below .229 in seven of them.
Obviously New York’s offense is a concern and they haven’t faced a left handed starter in their last 12 games (16 days) but they are in a solid position to generate some runs tonight. The key arms in their bullpen are all rested and even though RH Fernando Salas has thrown in three straight games, his pitch counts of 7,7,1 suggest he should be able to effectively come get a batter if necessary. San Francisco is in a prolonged tailspin right now going 5-12 in their last 17 games and their 31-5 three game shellacking at Cincinnati over the weekend doesn’t indicate promise. Bettors hitting the underdog SFG today dragging the -1.61 opener down to -1.48 in what primarily looks like nothing more than a value grab so play here is to buck the move and lay the reduced price with deGrom & the Mets.
OC Dooley
Capitals -100
Down 1-3 in the series and on the brink of elimination the Capitals scored THREE goals in the final period at home a few nights ago as the team who had the NHL's best regular season record stayed alive. When thinking of Washington Alex Ovechkin first comes to mind but it is the unknown Evgeny Kuznetsov who has scored FOUR goals so far in a series where Washington has OUTSHOT Pittsburgh (34-to-23) by a larege margin. It should also be pointed out that the Penguins RUSHED star Sidney Crosby back from a concussion. It was a year ago when Washington was eliminated in "six" games by Pittsburgh in the playoffs which sets up unique revenge this evening