Baseball Betting: Chicago Cubs at Cincinnati Reds

Added on May 16, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

More baseball betting action on Monday as the NL Central leading Cincinnati Reds host their divisional rivals the Chicago Cubs. The Reds have been in very good form lately, winning 8 of their last 10 while the Cubs have been treading water at 5-5.

Chicago Cubs (Zambrano) at Cincinnati Reds (Bailey)
May 16, 2011 4:05 PM Pacific

The beat goes on and once again we’ve got a situation where the beloved-by-the-’public’ Chicago Cubs are overvalued against a superior team. Carlos Zambrano has been pitching reasonably well this year–Chicago has won 6 of his 8 starts though his ERA of 4.35 is nothing to write home about. Even though he’s not in bad form, we’re getting value going against him due to his ‘big name’ and the fact that he’s opposed by a guy named ‘Homer’. More specifically, Homer Bailey who has pitched exceptionally well in two starts since rejoining the rotation–Bailey has allowed 1 ER in 13 innings of work and the Reds won both of his outings. Bailey is far from being a ‘household name’ but he was a pitcher we liked to play on last year for that very reason–he’s a decent talent but no one knows who he is yet.

The Cubs are a better investment on the road than at Wrigley Field (they’ve actually posted a +1 unit profit away from home so far this season) but overall they’ve lost 6.3 units for their investors. They’ve been especially bad against right handed pitching–they were rained out Sunday against the Giants and Tim Lincecum but even so they’re 10-17 -8.3 units against righties. The strong current form of Homer Bailey won’t help things in this regard. The Reds aren’t hugely profitable against RHP but they are in the black –not that its much of a surprise for one of the best offensive attacks in baseball. Cincy is 18-10 +5.3 units against the NL Central this year and took two of three games from the Cubs at Wrigley Field earlier this month. We expect the Reds to sweep the quick two game set against Chicago in their home ballpark–RHP Edson Volquez will get the start on Tuesday night. Given the Cubs’ situational record and the Reds strong recent form we’ll gladly lay the price with the home side.

Bet Cincinnati Reds (Bailey) -140 over Chicago Cubs (Zambrano)