RECAP 04/14: Not a great day in the office for sure. My record was 0-2 for -2.48 units. LAA Ohtani was -1.36 units. LAA hits an HR and is up 2-0 in the 1st, then Ohtani gets roughed up. TEX bats were hot! They scored four runs in the 2nd, and four runs more in the 4th! The is was up to COL Freeland to salvage the day, and CHC scored three on an HR in the 1st! COL did get two runs back in the 5th but gave them right back in the 6th. This day follows the season’s 1st losing day (yesterday) to make back-to-back losing efforts. Now the record is 12-9 for +1.92 units.
Friday 04/15 selections. We start at 1:10 PM in NY with the Mets as we continue our “ride” against ARI’s poor offensive start. ARI has played six games and scored 15 runs which is an average of 2.5 per game. ARI has a league-low of 25 hits, exacerbated by the 29th worst team having 34 hits. ARI is nine hits worse than the next-worst team. ARI’s starting pitcher is Davies, who is a contact guy. He gets his outs via soft contact on balls in play. He has not been good over the last year, though, and will now face an NYM offense ranked #2 in MLB. His track record in NY is not good, as he has thrown 14.2 innings allowing 18 hits and 11 runs for an ERA of 6.75. He has thrown 41.1 innings for his career, allowing 45 hits (7HRs) for a 5.01 ERA. The NYM batters are hitting .364 with an OPS of .967 against him. This performance leads me to believe they will continue to have success today. The money line is too high at -222, the same for the first five innings run line at -155. I opted to play the entire game online, NYM -1.5 -114. The play is rotation #952 NYM RL -1.5 -114.
The second selection begins at 7:10 PM in Chicago, where we see TB at CHW with a pitching matchup of Rasmussen vs. Cease. The first concept is pitchers generally have the edge over the batters when the batters have not seen them often or even at all. TB Rasmussen has zero CHW batters that have ever faced him before. CHW Cease has nine total at-bats from TB batters against him. In this game, the pitchers have the edge. TB Rasmussen has ten starts in 2021 and 1 so far this year and has NEVER allowed more the two runs in any of those starts! CHW Cease could be a candidate for the Cy Young award in the AL this season, so he is outstanding. TB comes in off a poor home series with OAK, and I expect that to “carry over” in this first game. I like both teams to struggle for offense in the first part of the game, but we could see some scoring when the bullpens come in. The play for this game is rotation numbers #971/972 First 5 Innings Under 4.5 -120.
The last choice is the late game starting at 100 PM in LA. CIN plays the LAD with a big money line of -240. CIN starting pitcher Gutierrez is projected at 0.0 WAR which is the equalivant to a AAA call-up pitcher. He throws a FB, SL, and CH. The LAD offense ranks #1 against the CH, #12 vs FB, and #18 vs SL. Their offense matches up well to his arsenal of pitches even though he never started vs the Dodgers before. LAD Gonsolin throws a pitch that is rarely used (Split FInger) and the CIN offense ranks #26 against it. In fact, CIN ranks below average (15th is average) against all of Gonsilin’s pitch arsenal. I like the idea LAD will find offense and CIN will not hence this selection is rotation #964 LAD RL -1.5 -124.
Note: I will caution this. When playing the home team on the run line, it does occur where the home team loses their at-bats in the 9th inning because they have the lead in the game. This is not an ideal way to make a wager and we should try to avoid making too many of these.