(66-64) -37.52 units in 18 days

Not listening to my own research and analysis.  Another one of my gambling flaws.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays at NYYs.  S. McClanahan vs N. Cortes.

Mr. McClanahan (7-0) has been the definition of an ace through eight starts (46 innings), posting a 1.76 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 58:20 K:BB. 

Not much to not like about him in any way.  Metrics and stats are almost all elite level.

If we wanted to get picky he is giving up too many walks at 3.9/9IP and his spin rate is "so so" at 2163 RPMs.

Lefties hitting .217 and righties .190.  Home 1.57/0.96 and away 1.96/1.30 ERA/WHIP.

Ground ball rate is 48.6% and line drive rate is 17.1%, both good.

FIP 3.22 and BABIP .272 seem to say he has been good and lucky this year.  Will probably get hit a bit more as the season goes on.

Gleyber Torres has a 14AB sample hitting .462BA, but everyone else has a small sample size or not that good. Surprise! He is the DH listed for tomorrow.

Mr. Cortes has looked shaky recently. Over his last four starts he's registered a 6.53 ERA raising his season mark to 4.74.

His last 3 starts he is 7.36/1.57 and his last 2 starts 6.72/1.71 ERA/WHIP.

Lefties hitting .160 and righties .264.  Home 3.13/1.13 and away 7.20/1.40 ERA/WHIP.  Loves to pitch at home quite a bit more than on the road.

His ground ball rate is extremely low at 20.4%.  This one stat alone could explain a lot of his increased ERA/WHIP recently.

His FIP and BABIP seem to leveling out.  This level of pitching might be who he really is.  Not the blazing hot pitcher of the early season.

Several guys in the lineup today have decent experience with Mr. Cortes.

Yandy Diaz 21/.286, Randy Arozarena 13/.154, Harold Ramirez 11/.273, Isaac Paredes 10/.300, Wander Franco 8/.250.  Others with smaller samples but many have faced him.

Watch out for his 2.0HR/9IP career home run rate.  He will give up the long ball.

The line of the game tonight is T.B. Devil Rays -131 and NYYs +111.  Seems very generous toward the Devil Rays considering the Yankees are putting a regressing pitcher on the mount tomorrow.

Value here is with the Devil Rays.

The line opened at Devil Rays -125 so I am going to go ahead and lock this in tonight anticipating it moving more toward the Devil Rays.

Official Play

T.B. Devil Rays -131 for 3 units.

LA Angels at Cleveland Indians.  R. Detmers vs C. Quantrill.

Mr. Detmers (0-3) has a 5.10 ERA, 1.50 WHIP and 38:12 K:BB over 30 innings spanning six starts.

His last 2 starts 7.56/1.92 ERA/WHIP.

Lefties hitting .313 while righties are hitting .258.  Home 5.52/1.64 and away 4.70/1.37 ERA/WHIP.

There are 4 left handed or switch hitting in the expected lineup vs him tomorrow.

Spin rate is pretty low at 2001rpm.  Line drive rate is high at 24.4% and ground ball rate is low at 35.4%.  3.6 walks/9IP is terrible.

FIP at 4.00 and BABIP at .367 seems to indicate he has been more unlucky than most or has a bad defense behind him.

Mr. Quantrill flirted with a no hitter vs the Twins last start out. 

He has completed at least seven innings in back-to-back starts and notched his second scoreless outing of the season.

He lowered his ERA from 4.73 to 3.89 for the season.

However, he has had a few bumpy appearances and isn't striking many batters out (21:12 K:BB through 39.1 innings).

So how is he getting this done?  Quite the mystery.  Let's dig and see what we can find.

Last 3 starts he is 3.57/1.19 ERA/WHIP.

Lefties hitting .197 righties .297.  Home 4.70/1.43 and away 3.38/1.25 ERA/WHIP.  Significant difference there.

A swinging strike rate of 6.4% which is absolutely terrible.  Might be in the 3 percentile in the league.

Ground ball rate of 42.2% and 20.00% on his line drive balls.  Average and above average respectively.

His strike out rate of 12.4% is the lowest of his entire 5 year career.

FIP of 4.55 and a very lucky BABIP of .273 say he won't keep pitching this good for long.

The question for tomorrow is, can he pitch this good for one more start?

Oh.

A quick reminder of just how bad the Indians are at hitting the baseball.  Always an important review, especially when they over perform like they did today with 4 runs scored.

Cleveland Indians Hitting Statistics  5-12-23

Batting Average .221 ranks 29 of 30 teams.

OBP is .297 and ranks 30 of 30 teams.

Slugging is .325 and ranks 30 of 30 teams.  Next closest is .360.

OPS is .621 and ranks 30 of 30 teams.  Next closest is .657.

OPS+ is 77 and ranks 30 of 30 teams.

Total Bases is 400 and ranks 30 of 30 teams.  Next closest is 446.

Strikeouts is 293 and ranks 29 of 30 teams.

Runs Per Game is 3.41 and ranks 29 of 30 teams.

The line on the game is currently LA Angels -114, Cleveland Indians -106.  Opened around LA Angels -125 and has already moved toward the Indians quite a bit.

No doubt due to Mr. Quantrill's excellent almost no hitter outing.  This is an excellent example of recency bias influencing a line. 

Almost guaranteed most of these bettors have no idea how bad the Indians are at hitting.  They can make any pitcher look like Cy Young on any given game day.

Part 2 incoming.

Part 2 and conclusion

But the books know about it.

So them setting that game line at -125 says that the Angels are a much better hitting team. I agree.

And Quantrill is not going to pitch a near no hitter again. The odds are greatly against that.

The O/U was set at 8.5 on the open with the OVER at -115. Currently it is 8 with the OVER 8 -119 and the UNDER 8 -101.

If this O/U were to somehow get to 7.5, I would have to take the OVER as I do believe Quantrill is going to get hit.

But currently, the value play here is on the Angels at -114.

Since bettors seem intent on driving the Angels line down, best to wait until tomorrow. Also want to see if the O/U drops to 7.5.

Waiting and watching on this one.

I absolutely have to look at this game before I hit the sack tonight.  Something really stinks about it.

Houston at Chicago White Sox.  B. Bielak v D. Cease.

Mr. Bielak stepped into the rotation last Sunday in Seattle and took a loss after surrendering three runs (two earned) on 10 hits and two walks while failing to strike out a batter over 4.2 innings.

That was his 2nd start of the year and he is 4.15/1.96 ERA/WHIP in those 2 starts.

Lefties hitting .353 while righties hitting .316.  Granted, a small sample size of only 41 batters, but still that is terrible.

Home is 4.50/1.25 and away is 3.86/2.57 ERA/WHIP.  Again, only one start each home and away.

So many bad stats.  It's hard to list them all.  But his FIP and BABIP say he really is this bad and probably worse.

If he manages to go 4IPs tomorrow, I don't see how its possible that he stays under 3ERs.  More likely 5-6ERs should be the average.  He is that bad.

Mr. Cease was exceptional through four starts this season, posting a 2.01 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 29:12 K:BB.

But his last 3 starts he has a 10.93/2.14 ERA/WHIP.  Probably the worst 3 start stretch in his career.

Lefties are hitting .244 and righties .264 although over the last 3 starts they are hitting much higher than that.

Home is 5.85/1.85 and away is 5.31/1.18 ERA/WHIP.

His FIP of 4.33 and BABIP of .327 indicate that he has been moderately unlucky with probably some bad defense behind him.

Just giving up too many walks at 4.5/9IP and his line drive ball is at 22.8%.  Control is the real problem here.  Will he suddenly find it tomorrow?

The line on the game is CWS -126 and Houston +106.  O/U at 9 with OVER 9 at +102 and UNDER 9 at -122.

The O/U opened at OVER 8.5 -120 and has quickly moved to 9.  I can't see any other way this game goes other than OVER like ROVER.

Two pitchers with WHIPs of 2.57 and 2.14 are going to find their control and pitch an "average" total number of runs for an "average" MLB game tomorrow?

Not happening.

I do like that the line moved from 8.5 to 9 early in the overnights.  At least that is in my favor.

Official Play.

Houston/Chicago White Sox OVER 9 +102 for 3 units.

@AdVictoriam

Cleveland now has the lowest runs scored to date at 130.

Cleveland has been one of the weakest teams all year at the plate. 

Cleveland can't hit. 

Cleveland can't score.

The hitters have looked like some of the weakest men we have ever seen holding a baseball bat in the history of sports. 

Players like Jose Ramirez and Josh Bell, just to name a few, couldn't hit a beach ball if it we placed directly on front of them at the plate. 

Im fairly confident that most bettors, since they are risking real money, are quite aware just how poorly this team is at hitting. If not shame on them. 

@AdVictoriam

@uclownfacedfool

 I would sincerely ask why this line has moved back up from the O/U of 8 to 8.5 right now this morning?

If all of these bettors are aware of how bad the Indians hitting is.

The Angels have also bounced back from the -114 last night to -124.  Back to near the opening line of -125.

Assuming all of the bettors were aware yesterday how bad their hitting was, why did they drive the Angels down to -114 last night?

Chicago Cubs at Minnesota Twins.  H. Wesneski vs J. Ryan.

Mr. Wesneski posted his third consecutive outing allowing just a single run and his second start in a row going at least six innings.

The 25-year-old now owns a 3.93 ERA, 1.28 WHIP and 23:8 K:BB over 34.1 innings.

His last 3 starts he is 1.59/0.88 ERA/WHIP.

Lefties hitting .295 and righties .250.  Home is 5.40/1.56 and away 2.55/1.02 ERA/WHIP.  Home numbers are skewed by a very bad 2nd outing at Seattle early in the year.

FIP of 4.92 and his BABIP of .280 indicate he has had luck on his side this year.  The expectation is he will not pitch at this current level all season long.

Reviewing the teams he faced in these 3 starts where he has been very good. 

Miami-might be one of the bottom 3 hitting in the league.  30th of 30 teams in runs scored at 3.39. 

The NATS-In the bottom 5 of the league in several key metrics including RPGs, Slugging, total bases and their OPS is 6th worst in the league.

San Diego-6th worst in the league in RPG and solidly in the bottom third of the league in most other hitting stats.  One of the worst with RISP.

His start vs the Oakland A's on April 17th mirrors these last 3 starts.  So 4 quality starts vs some bad hitting teams.

His 2 worst starts were vs the LA Dodgers and the Seattle Mariners.  Dodgers are a top 10 hitting team and the Mariners are a bottom third of the league team.

The Minnesota Twins today are also a bottom third of the league team.  Similar to Seattle.

His ground ball rate of 39.4% and the line drive rate of 24.8% are concerning.  Swinging strikes at 8.3% is very low.

Mr. Ryan's last outing marked just the third time over seven starts that he has allowed multiple earned runs.

 His 47:6 K:BB through 44 innings remains very elite.

His last 3 starts he posted a 1.42/0.95 ERA/WHIP vs the Indians, White Sox and Yankees without Judge, Stanton and Pederson.

Lefties hitting .183 and righties .200.  Home 3.46/0.85 and away 2.03/0.84 ERA/WHIP.

FIP of 2.81 and BABIP of .243 seem to indicate he has been slightly lucky this year.  He has been giving up the long ball a bit too much at 0.8HR/9IP.

The line on this game this morning is Twins -175 (up from -164 last night) and Cubs +150.  The O/U at 7.4 with OVER -101 and UNDER -119.

Just comparing their last 3 starts would have you normally taking Wesneski as he looks very close to Ryan.

But, in this case, the numbers are deceptive and based on him vs sub par competition.

One thing to consider is the Cubs are solid top 5-10 in the league in hitting.  The Twins are a solid bottom 10 hitting team.

No play from me.  I would lean Cubs for the value in the hitting disparity and for the chance that Wesneski might string a 4th good start today.

@AdVictoriam

 Yea tribe used to be one of the harder line ups to  strike out but this slump has them chasing everything.

Great insight 

METS at the NATS.  J. Lucchesi vs T. Williams.

Mr. Lucchesi has allowed three or more runs in three straight outings and surrendered a home run in each of those contests. 

His last 3 games he is 6.75/1.43 ERA/WHIP.  His last 2 outings 7.88/1.50.  Last start was in Colorado.

Lefties hitting .200 while righties .242.  Home 5.79/1.50 and away 3.27/1.00 ERA/WHIP.

FIP of 5.21 and BABIP of .255 indicate some pretty strong luck involved in him being this good.

3.1BB/9IP is very bad.  1.8HR/9IP is also very bad.  Lots of red on his metrics chart.

Always good to keep in mind that he has posted a 7.58 ERA in 48.2 career innings.

Mr. Williams had a rough outing vs Arizona last time out and has a 1.33 WHIP and 26:9 K:BB through 36 innings across seven starts.

Lefties hitting .296 and righties .250.  Home 2.35/1.17 and away 5.66/1.45 ERA/WHIP.  Over a 3 run difference there.  He is home today.

He doesn't get many swinging strikes and doesn't strike a lot of batters out.  7.4% swinging strike rate.

FIP and BABIP are about right.  So this is who he is.  A pitch to contact guy.  If he doesn't hit his spots, he gets beat up.

Ground ball rate is low at 37.9% with line drives at 18.1%.

These 2 teams are surprisingly comparable in hitting.  They bounce up/down around each other generally in the bottom half to bottom third in the stats.

The line is METS -150, NATS +130.  O/U at 9 with OVER -120 and UNDER +100.

I don't see how anyone could even consider an under in this game.  Both pitchers could blow up in any game at any time. 

Given how close these team are in hitting and how comparable these starters are, you have to say the value is with the NATS +130.

This should be a close game.  NATS RL +1.5 at -130 has value as well.

Not a play for me though.  I need more of a sure thing. LOL.

SammyKnows being on the Indians today at +105 has given me pause.

Seems to me that if the Indians are going to win this game, it has got to be low scoring.

I'm thinking he believe Quantrill shuts down the Angels.

If that happens, the UNDER 8 -105 is a solid +EV play.

Texas at Oakland.  J. Gray vs J.P. Sears.  Got to look over this game.  Any game with the worst team in the league must be evaluated.

Mr. Gray had his best start of the year on Monday setting new season highs in strikeouts and innings pitched.

This appearance was also the first time that the he did not issue a walk. The former Rockie is off to a solid start overall, posting a 3.82 ERA and 1.25 WHIP.

His last 3 he is 3.93/1.04 ERA/WHIP.

Lefties hitting .275 and righties .212.  Home 4.76/1.53 and away 3.05/1.02 ERA/WHIP.  Over 1.5 RPG better on the road.  He is on the road today.

Walks are high at 3.3/9IP but as mentioned above, his last outing he didn't issue a walk.

FIP of 5.63 and BABIP of .248 strongly indicate he will not be pitching this good as the season progresses.

His last outing vs Seattle might have been his best of the year.

Mr. Sears has now allowed 10 long balls in 37.1 innings, resulting in an unsightly 5.54 ERA.  3 homers in his last outing vs the Yankees.

His last 3 starts he is 6.32/1.28 ERA/WHIP.

Lefties hitting .393 and righties .219.  He will be facing one leftie and 3 switch hitters in the game today.

Home 2.70/1.14 and away 7.84/1.21 on ERA/WHIP.  Huge disparities there.  Good for him he is home today.

Ground ball rate of 27.6 is very low while his line drive is good at 15.2%.  Swinging strikes at 12.6% is good as is 9.2K/9IP.

FIP of 5.62 and BABIP of .274 seem to slightly indicate he may have been a bit lucky. 

Texas is -141 and the A's are +121.  O/U is 8.5 with the OVER -122 and the UNDER +102.

Mr. Gray should keep the A's under control today.  The line seems about right if not just a little generous.  Apparently, it opened at -161 and was at -151 last night and has drifted down even more today.

Hmm.

Someone believes the A's score some runs today.   But this is not Martin Perez the A's are facing today.

No matter, I'm almost always down with taking an OVER when it's at/below the league average of 9 runs.  Especially vs the worst team in the league.

In the 40 games the A's have played, 26 of them were 9 or more runs scored total.  That's a nice number of 65%. 

Official Play

Texas Rangers/Oakland A's OVER 8.5 for 5 units.

Yeah.  5 units.

 Edit:  Adding the Texas Rangers TT OVER 4.5  -125 as well for 3 units.

Seattle Mariners at the Detroit Tigers.  B. Miller vs A Faedo.

Let's begin with Mr. Faedo.  He who has the unfortunate name that rhymes with "fade O".

In his first start this year he posted a 4.2IP 3H 3R 2ER 2HR 1K and a 3.86/0.64 ERA/WHIP.  This was vs St. Louis on May 7th.

He threw 72 pitches and got 1K out of that effort.  Not too good.

Very small sample sizes but let's just say that really nothing looks very positive for Mr. Faedo.

Mr. Miller has made 2 starts this year and looked strong in both. 

He has a 0.75/0.42 ERA/WHIP over 12IPs.

Lefties are hitting .167 and righties 0.74.  Again, small sample sizes of 40 batters total but absolutely excellent.

He literally has no red indicators on any metric.  The only slight problems are ground ball rate of 12.5% and line drive rate of 25% but again, small sample sizes.

The line has moved up to Seattle -185 from -175 last night.  Still seems low but very reasonable given that the Tigers could get shut down today.

Of course, Mr. Miller won't pitch this well all season but he certainly could put up another strong outing vs a weak hitting Tigers team.

No play for now but strong lean to the Seattle RL -1.5 -115.

Have to also give strong consideration to the OVER 8.5 here.

Adding.

Seattle Mariners/Detroit Tigers OVER 8.5 -120 for 3 units

Not wagering on this but Miami should not be -240 vs any team.

The last 2 times that Alcantara went over 100 pitches, he allowed 9 hits and 10 hits respectively in the next 2 games.

He has thrown 103 and 113 pitches his last 2 starts.

Atlanta Braves vs Toronto Blue Jays.  B. Elder vs J. Berrios.

Don't have time for a complete write up here but I believe the wrong team is favored in this game.

Toronto is currently -129 after being -123 overnight.  Atlanta is +109.

Mr. Elder has now allowed just one run over his last two starts (12.1 innings).

Last 3 outings he is 2.55/1.02 ERA/WHIP.

He's 3-0 this season with an excellent 1.74 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 36:13 K:BB through seven starts.

He has been able to limit damage throughout the year thanks to a 57.6 percent ground ball rate.

Mr. Berrios's overall numbers have been marred by a couple of bad outings and he currently holds a 5.29 ERA and a 1.29 WHIP over 34 innings.

His last 3 outings he is 3.38/1.29 ERA/WHIP.  Home 0.75/0.75 and away 6.67/1.45 ERA/WHIP.  Huge disparity there, expect that to equalize a lot.

Quite a few players have a history with Berrios.  Not huge sample sizes though.  Nothing less than .333BA.

The wrong team is favored here.  Atlanta is solid top 5 in batting while Toronto is solid middle of the league.

Strong lean the Braves at +109.

No play as of now.  Will be watching the line action.

One run games comprise roughly 33-34% of all MLB games each year.

Thus, the RL -1.5 can be a strong indicator of how much the books think a particular game has a chance to be a one run game.

Atlanta +1.5 at -183 and Houston +1.5 at -185 are good indicators of a 1 run game being highly likely.

Houston, with its lower total at 8.5, would seem to have more of a chance than Atlanta with its total of 9.

A close game makes a dog wager a more favorable wager as the close game gives the dog more value at the plus money wager.

Pitching change the Texas/Oakland game today.

J. Kaprielian is starting for the A's.

His last 2 starts before being demoted to AAA he had a 27.00/4.80 ERA/WHIP.

Much worse than Sears.

I feel like I really should add on to this game.

Technically, the Rangers should be a 10 star today.

I'm going to have to do it.

Adding.

LA Angels -126 for 3 units.

Playing the +EV probabilities in this game.

The Indians will need to beat their RPG for the 2nd game in a row to have a shot to win.

Adding.

LA Dodgers -151 for 3 units.

Musgrove will not shut down the Dodgers like he did last time vs them.  He is not that good.

Adding.

Baltimore Orioles -1.5 +118 for 3 units.

Pirates 1-9 and still slumping hard at the plate. 

Contreras has been too inconsistent to be the one that stops the O's hitting which is top 10 in MLB.

Think about this.

The Padres have played 38 games this year.

They have scored 3 or less runs in 20 of them. 

Let that sink in.

With the talent on that team, that is unbelievable.

If the Padres score 3 or more runs, they are 18-1.

The Cleveland Indians score 6 runs in the bottom of the 8th to crush the Angels.

Basically, what they score in 2 full games on average, they scored in 1 inning.

Probably just because I had the Angels.

Take a little break. Regroup. Seems like your digging in hole more an more