MLB Betting Preview: Cincinnati Reds at Colorado Rockies

Added on Sep 06, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

More baseball betting action on Tuesday night in the National League as the Cincinnati Reds head west to take on the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field in Denver. Cincy is in good shape at the moment, holding a 6 game advantage over the inconsistent St. Louis Cardinals. Colorado is fighting back into playoff contention–combined with the San Diego Padres recent swoon they’re now just 4 games behind the division leaders.

Cincinnati Reds (Cueto) at Colorado Rockies (Chacin)
September 7, 2010–5:40 PM Pacific

The NL West race looked to be a foregone conclusion a month ago, but with the Padres in a tailspin its opened the door not only for the San Francisco Giants but the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies still struggle away from Denver (29-42) and that may be their eventual undoing but they’re a formidable home team with a 45-23 +11 unit record. Colorado has been at their best against good teams this season–they’ve got a 46-32 +13.5 unit mark against teams with winning records.

We like this Cincinnati team and if you’ve followed our baseball writeups here you’re aware that we’ve used them a lot. Johnny Cueto, in particular, is one of our favorite ‘play on’ pitchers in baseball. No issue at all with his road performance this year, as Cueto sports a 3.17 ERA and the Reds have won 8 of his 13 away starts. Ghoulys Chacin is pitching out of his mind down the stretch, however, and we just can’t pass him up here. Chacin has a solid enough 3.35 ERA on the year, but in his last three starts–against decent hitting teams no less–he’s allowed a total of 2 earned runs for a 0.90 ERA in that stretch with 19 strikeouts.

With the St. Louis Cardinals not showing a lot of intensity, the Reds don’t have anyone pushing them very hard at this point. St. Louis has the talent to make a run, but they’ve not really shown signs this season that they’ve got the willpower to do so. The Rockies have found a postseason opportunity dropped into their lap, and we look for them to give it a good fight. Colorado has dominated head to head play between the two sides in recent years–Rockies have won 14 of 17 head to head in the last three years (+11.4 units) including 7 of 8 (+5.8 units) at home. We’ll gladly take an excellent home team and a pitcher in his best form of the year at a reasonable price.

Bet Colorado Rockies (Chacin) -130 over Cincinnati Reds (Cueto)