The MLB Betting Market through 6/7: June 7th 2010

Handicappers PicksJun 7, 2010

If you look at baseball betting as if it were the stock market, here’s a look at what we’re buying and selling through another week of play on the diamond.

Bullish Squads
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (6-1, +$526) – The Halos could’ve easily just folded up the tent and called it a season after 1B Kendry Morales broke his leg celebrating a walk off home run back on May 29th, but that just hasn’t been the case. The team has won eight out of nine games since that point, including taking six of the first seven games of this wild 14 game road trip that it is on.

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Washington Nationals v Los Angeles Angels

Bleacher Report1w

Bleacher Report1w

Houston Astros (5-1, +$509) – What is that? The Astros are finally bullish? This could be a case of market correction, but Houston is finally getting pitching that is good enough to make up for its miserable offense. The Astros have won five out of six and six out of eight to claw back to the point where they could possibly get out of the gutter in the NL Central, but with a four game roadie into Colorado and a three game set at Yankee Stadium coming this week, keeping that up seems to be unlikely.

Bearish Squads
Baltimore Orioles (1-6, -$451) – This is about as bearish as you can get. The Orioles had lost ten straight games before beating the Red Sox 4-3 on Sunday afternoon. Manager Dave Trembley had to go and was finally dismissed, as the team is only on a pace to win 45 games all season long.

Arizona Diamondbacks (2-5, -$280) – Though we’ll talk more about the D’Backs in just a moment, there is not a doubt in anyone’s mind that this could be the most disappointing team in baseball and is certainly a bearish squad to stay away from. MLB betting fans were crushed by this team’s offensive output in LA over Memorial Day (see below). Taking two out of three against Colorado at home over the weekend didn’t nearly erase that ugly ten game losing streak that the team had to endure, though.

Player to Buy – Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado Rockies: The Rocks are staying in the race for the NL West crown thanks to Jimenez, who is on pace to shatter all sorts of records this year. His string of 33 consecutive scoreless innings came to a close on Sunday, but he still now holds the Colorado franchise record in that department. Jimenez has a 0.93 ERA and is cruising towards Bob Gibson’s infamous 1.12 ERA season, and he is only a pace to win 32 games this year.

Players to Sell – Arizona Diamondbacks Starting Lineup: When your pitchers have two of your 12 hits in two extra inning games, that’s generally not a very good sign. Arizona went scoreless in 25 innings over two days against the Los Angeles Dodgers, and only batter .139 in those two games. That really just won’t cut it at the MLB level under any circumstance, but especially when you have a pitching staff that gives you two great outings in a row after posting a 5.50 ERA, the worst in baseball, for the rest of the season.