MLB Baseball Betting Free Picks: Cincinnati Reds at Los Angeles Dodgers

Added on Aug 21, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Plenty of nighttime baseball action on the docket for Saturday, and we’ll take a look in the National League where the Cincinnati Reds play out on the West Coast against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Reds won the first game of this series, and is looking to extend their advantage in the NL Central. Cincinnati has won seven straight and is now 3 games up on St. Louis in the NL Central due to the Cardinals’ 5 game losing streak. The Dodgers’ only real motivation at this point is staying above .500, as they’ve well off the pace in the NL West divisional race.

Cincinnati Reds (Johnny Cueto) at Los Angeles Dodgers (Chad Billingsley)
August 21, 2010—7:10 PM Pacific

One of our favorite baseball handicapping concepts this time of the year is looking to bet teams in the midst of a divisional race against team that are well out of playoff contention and don’t really seem to care anymore. August is always the best month for this strategy, since when the rosters expand on September 1^st the dynamic on also-ran teams changes dramatically. At that point, some teams give playing time to prospects that’ll actually exert an effort in hopes of furthering their Major League career. For now, however, this can be a very effective baseball betting tactic.

The Dodgers have been spinning their wheels in the NL West for most of the year and enter this game having lost 7 of their last 10. They’ve turned a profit in some situations, but of particular note is their performance against teams with winning records in the second half of the season—in that role they’re 13-21 -9.9 units. Los Angeles had dominated Cincinnati at home until last night’s victory broke that six game streak in the series.

As we’ve discussed before, the Reds do it with offense. They lead the NL with a team batting of 2.72 and score a NL best 4.95 runs per game. They’ve also been very profitable on the road this year with a 35-25 mark for 12.1 units of profit. We like Chad Billingsley, but with the way the Reds have pummeled right handers this year we can’t back him in this spot. Against RHP Cincinnati is 50-34 +15.6 units.

Reds have won 8 of Johnny Cueto’s 12 road starts, and are 10-3 +9.6 units this year as a road underdog in this price range (+100 to +125). Just can’t argue with that 15-4 +9.8 unit record in the month of August.

Bet Cincinnati (Cueto) +110 over Los Angeles (Billingley)