Baseball Betting Picks: Cincinnati Reds at Cleveland Indians

Added on Jun 17, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Interleague play continues on Monday with the ‘Battle for Ohio’ as the NL Cincinnati Reds head to Cleveland to take on the AL Indians. The Reds swept the Tribe at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati earlier this months and since then the teams have been heading in different directions. The Reds have been playing well while the Indians have struggled.

Cincinnati Reds at Cleveland Indians
June 18, 2012 4:05 PM Pacific

The Reds took three games from the Indians at home and that has set the tone for the overall form of each club since then. Cincinnati is red hot, having won six straight 7 of their last 10 while Cleveland has lost 7 of 10. The Reds have not only put up good numbers at home this season but have won money on the road going 18-14 +4.6 units. Cleveland is now 17-18 -3.9 units at home.

At the price, however, we view this as a good opportunity for the Tribe to get back on the winning track. Cincinnati will start Mat Latos who hasn’t exactly been impressive this year. Latos has a 4.64 ERA overall that balloons to 6.12 with a WHIP of 1.720 on the road. His Cleveland counterpart, Derek Lowe, has pitched well this season and particularly at home. Overall, Lowe has a 3.78 ERA but at home that shrinks to a very impressive 1.37 and the Indians have won 4 of his 6 home outings. His ‘last three’ stats don’t look good with a 5.60 ERA but that’s based almost entirely on one bad game (7 ER in 5 innings at Detroit).

This season has been evenly contested over the past few years with the Reds holding a narrow 8-7 advantage. It has been very location dependent, however, and Cleveland has won 4 of the last 6 games at home against Cincinnati. The Indians have been at their best this season against right handed pitching and they’ll get a steady diet of them from the Reds during this series. Cleveland is 28-19 +10 units against right handers this season and have put up good offensive numbers in the process averaging 4.5 runs per game. The Cleveland offense is better than they’ve shown lately while the Cincinnati pitching staff has overachieved somewhat . Look for that dynamic to begin to move the other way during this series and at a ‘pick’em’ price we’ll go with the home team and Derek Lowe.

Bet Cleveland Indians (Lowe) -105 over Cincinnati Reds (Latos)