Rival

It has been a while since I have posted a pick on Frostbet. I am working my way to being a more active contributor. We picked up a win in our last appearance, bringing my record on this site to 1-1-0 for a complete break-even of +/- 0 units. I have two MLB unders that I would like to share with everyone.

Los Angeles Dodgers at Cincinnati Reds (BEST BET)

Our play on this game will be the under 8 at -115. This is our best bet for today. I will be risking $2,300 to profit $2,000 (2.3 units / 2.0 units). I have taken the line from BetOnline.

This is a very confident play. For anyone who has followed me on Twitter for a while, you will know that my plays are rarely higher than 1-unit. I made an exception to that earlier this week when we picked up a 3-unit win on Tampa Bay. That required two 9th-inning runs which was a little too-close (I actually went to sleep out of frustration early, and did not check the score for an entire day. Seriously, I am not even kidding, look at my Tweet history…)

The new acquisitions to the Dodgers have not performed well, Wood included. He has conceded at least 3 runs in each of his starts, failing to go very deep in games. Since joining Los Angeles, his ERA has risen from 3.65 to 3.79. Despite giving up many runs, he has not conceded a significant amount of hits. This leads me to believe that Wood is pitching much better than his perception would indicate.

Los Angeles’ bats have been very quiet since getting no-hit by Mike Fiers in Houston over the weekend. The acquisition of Chase Utley made the most expensive team in baseball a lot more expensive. As the season progresses, I believe LA’s offense will improve to the form they displayed earlier this season, including Utley. Does that take away from some of the value on tonight’s under? Sure. But I have not mentioned the pitcher he is opposing.

I always love backing a guy who is pitching in his first few starts, especially for a team that is out of contention. The advantage is more or less in the favor of the pitcher. Lamb has conceded 5 (8 hits) and 3 (9 hits) runs in his first two starts, respectively. One of those was against the very same Dodgers that he faces tonight. It is meaningless to try to take information from a small sample size, and I would make a fool out of myself if I did. All I know is that Lamb pitched much better than the results of the first two starts would suggest.

I believe the true total of this game should be 6.5, with a -120 price to the over. Do to the significant margin between my true-spread, and the perceived odds set by the sportsbook, I have elected to make this a two-unit play.

Toronto Blue Jays at Texas Rangers

Our second play of the day will be the under 9 at -115. I will be risking $1,115 to profit $1,000 (1.15 units / 1.00 units). I have taken the line from BetOnline.

I would venture to assume that no one in their right mind wants to bet the under on this game. The total has jumped up an entire run over the past hour. I waited on it as long as I possibly could, but for the sake of the article I need to get it out on time. That is one of the struggles of providing profitable gambling advice, you get handcuffed sometimes.

Both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Texas Rangers have been red hot. For some reason no one seems to want to talk about the fact that the Rangers have snuck into a playoff position. Someone needs to mention it… seriously.

Buehrle had his shortest start of the season last outing, where he only lasted 16 outs against the Angels.

Although being quiet about it, Buehrle has admitted that he had been struggling with a minor injury. This information was released when his start against the Athletics was swapped with Dickey, who has no problem going on days with short-rest. As well as getting a day off yesterday, the short outing adds a ton of value to supporting the Blue Jays’ pitcher, either through the under or a side. When an older pitcher concedes a lot of runs, people believe regression is finally about to hit hard. On top of this, the short outing could potentially have given Mark enough time to recover from his shoulder issue. I believe he will put up another great start tonight.

As for Holland, he looked brilliant in his return from injury. You can be sure that the Rangers do not want to force anything, so he will likely not be seen deep into the seventh inning if all things go right. After crushing the Detroit Tigers in the prior series, their above-average bullpen is well-rested to take the baton. I have the true total for this game set at 7.5, with a -125 price to the over. It was a tough decision to keep it a one-unit play, but in the end there is a smaller confidence here than with the other under, so I believe this is the best way to spread it out.

After taking a rough beat on my first published play, I am back for redemption with another under involving the Oakland Athletics. Lets see how they find a way to screw this up.

Last Week

We took a bad beat last week when Jose Bautista went deep on the last out of the first five innings to make our under 4.5 a loss in the game started by Brooks and Hutchison. The full-game ended up going under, which is always frustrating. But when you do this as a career, its paramount not to dwell on anything. I personally took an entire day off.

This Week

We are going to be taking the under 8.5 (-120) in tonight’s match between the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics. The starting pitchers for this game are Bassitt and Gonzalez. In all honesty, I am still getting new to making write-ups, so I apologize for my perhaps seemingly lean article. I promise that I am making an effort to improve the quality of each one (I am sure that gives you a ton of confidence in this pick, but trust me):

I have the true line of this game set at 7.5, +105 to the under. This means that I project us to have a bit less than a full run edge on the line that is currently available at the time that I am posting this article (5Dimes). As we progress later into the season, not only do we have more information on each pitcher, but we also have more information on how they are perceived. Bassitt has put up some decent numbers so far, posting a 2.48 ERA. Whenever a no-name comes up, especially when its with a bottom-dweller, people are always looking for the regression to hit. And thats perfectly fine, as it factors in to the mantra of betting according to the difference between the true and perceived numbers.

I do believe that Bassitt is a competent pitcher. By no means do I have him out to be a career 3.00 ERA starter, but I believe somewhere oscillating around 3.50 can be expected. The impending regression that the public seems to be awaiting adds some value to the under, as in my opinion, he is not as far away from his eventual mean as people make him out to be.

His counterpart, Miguel Gonzalez, is having a bad season (4.45 ERA). A career mid-3.00 pitcher, Gonzalez has not done anything to warrant standing out in an otherwise bland Orioles rotation. I do not think he is as bad as he has played so far this season, and will begin to move towards his career numbers a bit more as we head down the closing stretch of the season. Backed by a starting nine that is heavy in the middle and light everywhere else, I believe Gonzalez will turn in a great pitching performance backed by no run support. 

Record

I will be keeping track of my record on the season at the end of each post. Last week we risked 1.00 units on the first five innings under 4.5 between the Blue Jays and the Athletics. That lost at +100 odds, so we start off 0-1-0 on Frostbet for -1.00 units.

All of my picks are always free. I post the ones that I deem ‘tailable’. Since full-time sportsbetting has a lot to do with which number you get, its often difficult for me to suggest betting on something if the number is already gone by the time that I lock my own plays in. I will only play the ones that I believe you will get a significant enough edge on when you end up seeing it. The same goes for these articles.