MLB Betting Picks: San Diego Padres at Houston Astros

Added on Apr 16, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Saturday baseball action takes us to the Lone Star State of Texas for a National League game between the San Diego Padres and Houston Astros. The Padres are 6-7 on the year after a win in Friday’s game while the Astros are 4-10.

San Diego Padres (Latos) at Houston Astros (Figueroa)
April 16, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

The teams have split the first two games of this series and we cashed a ticket with San Diego on Friday. The Padres are getting very good pitching this season and are currently #4 in team ERA in the MLB with a 2.89 mark. Unfortunately, they’re not getting much help at the plate and haven’t really been able to do much against the Astros pitiful pitching staff scoring only 4 runs in the first two games of this set. San Diego is averaging 3.25 runs per game and rank #28 in the MLB in runs scored. Even worse is their team batting average of .206 which is #29 overall.

As noted above, we expected San Diego to take advantage of the struggling Houston pitching staff. The Astros have the forth worst team ERA in baseball (5.13). Houst0n’s bullpen hasn’t provided much support either with a 4.38 ERA heading into Thursday’s game.San Diego’s Mat Latos looked decent in a losing cause in his only outing of the season thus far allowing 3 runs on 4 hits, though he was undone by 2 home runs. That shouldn’t be an issue against Houston and he’s dominated the Astros in his only two career starts against them winning both games going 8 innings in each allowing a total of 6 hits and no runs. Nelson Figueroa has looked awful so far this season–he’s 0-2 averaging only 4.7 innings per start with a bloated 10.61 ERA (11.25 ERA at home). If the Padres are going to get some offense against anyone it’ll be him. The price on San Diego is a little higher than we’d like but given Latos’ mastery of Houston’s batters and Figueroa’s struggles this year we’ll lay the chalk with San Diego. The Padres have already shown a profit on the road and we love their bullpen ERA’s performance away from home (1.74 to date).

Bet San Diego Padres (Latos) -145 over Houston Astros (Figueroa)