MLB Betting Free Picks: San Diego @ Florida

Added on Jun 26, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Baseball betting on tap at sportsbooks again tonight, and once again we’ll look at the lone National League game as the San Diego Padres take on the Florida Marlins. Padres won the series opener last night to maintain their 2.5 game advantage atop the NL West. Florida is in 4th place in the NL East with Washington just 2.5 games behind.

San Diego Padres (Garland) at Florida Marlins (Johnson)
June 26, 4:10 PM Pacific

Another great opportunity to take a position on the always undervalued Padres. In this game the Marlins are commanding a premium price with Josh Johnson on the mount and he’s definitely a quality pitcher in exceptional form. Johsnon has a 1.80 ERA on the season and has allowed just two earned runs in his last three starts. Yet the Marlins are just 10-5 in his starts–as it stands, that’s good for a +3.2 unit profit but it looks like a case where the prices on Johnson are starting to inflate well past the value point. Jon Garland’s ERA isn’t quite as glossy at 3.26 but with San Diego winning 9 of his 15 starts the wins and losses have been almost identical.

Of course baseball is a team game and this is where we get much of the value on San Diego. The Padres are just a better team. They’re 13 games above .500 overall are are 20-14 +11.2 units on the road. Florida, on the other hand, is 19-20 -4 units at home and 3 games under .500 overall. San Diego is also very good at ‘manufacturing’ runs which is a very valuable skill against top level hurlers. With all due respect to the considerable talents of Johnson, we’ll take the nice underdog price on the Padres.

Bet San Diego (Garland) +180 over Florida (Johnson)