MLB Baseball Betting: Umpires that Favor the 'Under': May 21st 2010

BetUS Sportsbook continues its look at various angles that can help you cash in on MLB betting action by analyzing the top ‘under’ umpires that you should be watching the next time that you have your eye on a pitcher’s duel.

Bruce Dreckman (1-7) – ‘Unders’ are cashing all over the place with Dreckman calling balls and strikes this year. He has now had seven out of eight games calling at least 61 percent strikes and has averaged 62.5 percent for the season. All but two games have had at least 13 strikeouts in them, while his walk total has stayed at seven or less in five straight MLB betting affairs. In fairness to Dreckman, he has seen some fantastic pitching matchups as well of late, as LHP Zach Duke, RHP Roy Halladay, LHP Mark Buehrle, RHP Ubaldo Jimenez, and RHP AJ Burnett have made appearances amongst Dreckman’s L/4 games.

Jim Wolf (1-6) – Walk totals continue to be incredibly low in Wolf’s games behind the dish, and the end result has been a ton of ‘under’ games to look at. Wolf was the man calling balls and strikes in the LHP Dallas Braden perfect game, but the only Top 20 pitchers in baseball that he has seen all season long are Tampa Bay RHP James Shields (and it’s debatable whether he is a Top 20 pitcher as well) are Toronto RHP Ricky Romero. You’re still getting a great advantage with ‘unders’ when you see Wolf’s name behind the plate.

Tim Timmons (2-7-1) – Timmons had a pair of uncharacteristically high scoring games in the middle of May, but since that point, he has come back with two more eight run affairs that have resulted in ‘unders’. Wednesday’s duel between New York Mets RHP R.A. Dickey and Washington Nationals RHP Livan Hernandez marked the first time all year that he hadn’t rung up at least ten batters in a game. Timmons is calling strikes on 63.1 percentage of his pitches this year, and has averaged fanning 12.9 batters per game.

Mike Estabrook (2-7) – Estabrook enters the ‘under’ poll this week thanks to a stretch of four out of five ‘under’ affairs. Yes, he has a pair of games this year under his belt with double digits in run production, but he also has a 1-0 affair between Atlanta Braves RHP Tommy Hanson and New York Mets RHP Mike Pelfrey, and those two double-digit run affairs were the only ones that got over seven runs with Estabrook behind the dish. Though it would’ve been a well-pitched game no matter who the umpire was behind the plate, Estabrook punched out 24 batters when Cleveland Indians LHP Fausto Carmona and Tampa Bay Rays RHP Jeff Niemann met up earlier this week.

Paul Emmel (2-6-1) – Of Emmel’s nine appearances calling games, he has produced six outings of no more than five runs. His 5.4 runs per game are amongst the lowest in baseball. However, one must be careful with his walk totals. San Diego RHP Wade LeBlanc and San Francisco Giants LHP Barry Zito combined to have 17 walks issued in their game on May 11th, yet only five runs were scored.

Courtesy of Mike Rose (Handicapperspicks.com) – Published on Betus.com RSS Feed

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