MLB Baseball Betting: Chicago Cubs vs. New York Mets Pick: April 19th 2010

Chicago Cubs vs. New York Mets
Free Pick: New York Mets +119
Courtesy of Mike Rose (Handicapperspicks.com)
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The Monday night MLB slate takes us to Citi Field where the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets will partake in the first of three battles with both clubs looking to turn the page on very disappointing weekends.

The Cubs took the first of their three-game weekend set with the Houston Astros on Friday, but Roy Oswalt shut them down on Saturday and then Carlos Marmol blew his first save of the year on Sunday which set Houston up for the extra innings win yesterday afternoon.

The Mets played a ton of baseball in St. Louis over the weekend having played in the 7+ hour 20 inning game on Saturday. With the series tied at a game apiece heading into last night’s game, the Mets failed to hold onto a 3-0 lead and dropped the fourth straight betting series to start their 2010 campaign.

The Cubs have won each of RHP Randy Wells first two starts of the season; he gets his third call to the bump 1-0 with a 2.92 ERA & 1.54 WHIP along with an 8/3 K/BB ratio. He has however allowed 16 hits in just 12.1 total innings of work, and opponents are batting .327 against him.

Niese has gotten off to quite a rocky start his season. He enters his third outing of the year 0-1 with a bloated 6.55 ERA having given up 17 hits and eight ER’s through 11 total innings of work.

I simply do not believe in the Cubs enough to back them as short road chalk in this spot. The offense is way too inconsistent, and the bullpen has been a freaking nightmare; just ask Ryan Dempster how he feels about the guys backing him up.

The Cubs have tallied victories in just six of their L/19 trips to the Big Apple, and they’re eight-games under .500 on the road the L/3 seasons (79-87).

Niese may not have the endurance needed to go deep against better than average offensive attacks, but the Cubs are hardly that, and he’s got the second best ranked bullpen backing him up.

Because of that, I’m backing Niese and the Mets as short home dowgs in this one.

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