MLB Baseball Betting Free Picks: Chicago Cubs at Washington Nationals

Added on Aug 24, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Baseball betting action on Tuesday in the National League as the Chicago Cubs continue their three game series against the Washington Nationals. The Cubs did manage to get a win on Monday in their first game without longtime manager Lou Piniella. The Nationals’ pitching staff is wracked by injuries at the moment, the most significant being a tendon strain suffered by rookie pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg. He’s been put on the 15 DL and the team is awaiting the results of a second MRI before making the decision on whether or not to shut him down for the year.

Chicago Cubs (Zambrano) at Washington Nationals (Lannen)
August 23, 2010—4:05 PM Pacific

A frequent mistake of neophyte sports bettors is overreacting to wins and losses. Inexperienced players will abandon a longterm winning strategy due to a shorterm setback. Despite Monday’s loss, we’re going to keep going against Chicago for awhile. Even with Monday’s victory, Chicago is 51-75 on the season, and has lost more money for bettors than any team in baseball (-31.7 units). They’re marginally better on the road from a profit/loss standpoint than they are at home (where they’re always overvalued despite their struggles) but even so they’re 22-36 -11 units away from the ‘friendly confines’ of Wrigley Field.

The Cubs are marginally better against lefthanded pitching than they are against right-handers, but that’s really not saying much. They’ve got a 19-25 record against southpaws for a loss of -12.3 units. On the road, they’re a reasonable 9-11 -2.1 units against lefthanders but with so many other situational records showing huge losses that’s not much of a justification for a play on Chicago. Perhaps the worst thing about this Cubs team is the way they play against teams they should be able to beat—against teams with losing records Chicago is 23-36 -25.7 units this season.

Washington’s John Lannen has pitched very well in his last three starts—all Nationals victories—with a 2.95 ERA. For the year, the Nats have won 5 of his 8 home assignments. Carlos Zambrano has pitched fairly well of late but he’s received very little run support. His YTD numbers on the road are ugly—6.88 ERA with the Cubs losing 5 of his 8 starts.

Washington still has a +3.3 unit profit here at Nationals Park where they sport a winning record (31-28). Until the Cubs show some more concrete signs of a turnaround, we’ll keep looking to play against them in just about every situation—including this one.

Bet Washington (Lannen) -125 over Chicago Cubs (Zambrano)