Recap of 04/11: I had 3 picks all underdogs and feel that I should have gone 3-0! This is not an unusual feeling for baseball betting. Anyway, I won with TOR Manaoh +105 as threw great and TOR shut out NYY. I lost with NYM Walker +137. He was removed after 2 innings with a sore shoulder, but NYM had a 4-0 lead in the 8th inning. I chose full game here because my view was NYM may need to rally against the PHI bullpen and that was an edge I didn’t want to miss out on. However, PHI rallied against the NYM bullpen and score 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th to win the game. Feels terrible and like I should’ve won that one. It is baseball and already the 2nd time for an issue like this. It won’t be the last. I won with SD Martinez +131 against SF and Wood. It was more or less a tight battle throughout. Martinez was in and out of trouble in the first part of the game, then settled down throwing very well. SD put up 4 runs which were enough to beat SF 4-2. Overall, 2-1 +1.36 units.
Today’s selections.
Starting at 4:10 rotation #917. I am going with CLE Bieber -107 @ CIN. Here we have both pitchers in their second starts and Bieber is more Cy Young type pitcher, certainly an ACE, and should be expected to back good performances with other good performances. Mahle is a good pitcher but not an ace pitcher. I expect a worse out from him in his second start than his first. CLE rallied to win their last 2 games in KC and now travel to CIN where I expect them to “carry over” their momentum for game #1 of the series. In fact, CLE is ranked #2 in OFF (Offense WAR metric), #3 in wRC+, and #1 in wRAA. Yes, I know it is only after 4 games, but this is what I want. I don’t care what their rankings will be at the end of the season, I am not betting them then, I am betting them here on April, 12. Recency matters to some data points and not others. I also like that CIN is just the opposite. They rank #28 in OFF, 28 in wRC+, and 28th in wRAA. Simply said, Bieber is a better pitcher facing a worse offense and CLE has the ability to take advantage of that. I played #917 CLE Biber -107.
My second selection starts at 6:45. Going back to the scene of yesterday’s crime in PHI, however, I going to play rotation #904 Wheeler F5 -.5 -115. Similar to the above game in the sense that Megill made a very good start in his 1st start, I am expecting a worse performance here. The Mets and the Phillies have top 5 offenses, so I expect PHI to be able to take advantage of Megill. Wheeler will be making his 1st start and he’s the best pitcher on their team. He is an ace. It allows him the opportunity to stifle the NYM offense enough to limit scoring. I like the idea that Wheeler limits NYM, and Megill does not limit PHI which means we should see PHI with the lead. I played F5 to avoid the PHI bullpen and to endure the at-bats. If you play full game RL with the home team, often they are leading after 8 and they do not get to bat in the 9th.
My third selection is the continued ride of poor ARI offense. We need either be betting against them or Under in all of their games until they turn around the hitting. Today, they face HOU and Garcia. I choose not to bet against them, not because I expect them to win, but because I thought the better value was on the UNDER. HOU is -150. The UNDER is 9.5 -120. The idea is to think about how many runs will ARI score? I assume 0-2 at this point based on their lousy offense. If that holds true, then HOU will need 8-10 runs by themselves to go OVER the 9.5. I like those odds better than HOU winning the game at -150. I do not like to get into that area, especially with away favorites and in this case, an AL team traveling to an NL city. The choice is rotation #929/930 HOU@ARI UNDER 9.5 -120