MLB Betting Picks: LA Angels at Cleveland Indians
Added on Jul 02, 2012 by Jack Thurman in
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A couple of teams fighting to get out of second place in their respective divisions face off in Cleveland today as the Indians host the Los Angeles Angels. Cleveland is just 1 1/2 games back of the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central as no one really wants to take control of baseball’s weakest division. The LA Angels wish they had that problem–they’ve been playing great baseball over the past month and have risen to second place in the AL West. The problem is that the Texas Rangers have been playing great baseball all year and still hold a 5.5 game advantage.
Los Angeles Angels at Cleveland Indians
July 2, 2012 4:05 PM Pacific
When handicapping baseball one of the things we often look at first is a team’s profit and loss profile in specific situations. In the case of the LA Angels, that’s not exactly accurate since they started the season playing terrible–particularly on offense–but have been one of the best teams in the sport over the past month. Cleveland’s profit/loss statement is more indicative of the type of team they really are. The Indians are just above the ‘Mendoza Line’ and have posted +1.6 units of profit. For a team two games over .500 that’s probably where they should be.
The valuation of the Los Angeles Angels are a little more difficult to assess. YTD they’re -4 units despite being 9 games over .500. Much of that–as noted above–is based on their early season struggles. The team entered the year with high expectations and were priced accordingly. After they slumped out of the gate and linesmakers adjusted accordingly they were often a good value–and undervalued–as their form improved.
In our view, the market still hasn’t caught up to just how good this Angels team really is. They’ve had good pitching all season but now the hitting is starting to come around. Albert Pujols was front and center in the mainstream media as he slumped mightily coming out of the gate. They’ve not given equal attention to Pujols as he’s rebounded to a .271 batting average with 12 home runs. And they’ve certainly not paid due attention to the talented Mike Trout hitting .339 with 20 HRs.
The pitching has always been there and Jared Weaver has been almost unhittable in his recent assignments. In his last three starts. Granted, one of those was a strange outing against New York when he was pulled in the first inning after allowing 2 hits and 3 runs (all unearned). Since then he’s pitched 14 1/2 innings allowing 8 hits and 1 ER. Cleveland counters with Ubaldo Jimenez who has pitched reasonably well of late–especially at home where he’s got a 3.39 ERA–but that pales in comparison to the Cy Young level performance of Weaver.
We’ll lay the price with the Los Angeles Angels–they’ve got to keep winning just to keep pace with the Rangers and they’ve got a great chance to take at least two of three from the Indians.
Bet Los Angeles Angels (Weaver) -140 over Cleveland Indians (Jimenez)
