MLB Betting Preview: Colorado Rockies at Los Angeles Dodgers

Added on Sep 17, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

The focus of the sports world will shift to football betting this weekend, but for Friday we’ve found a nice baseball value in the National League game between the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers. The Rockies are now back in the playoff hunt following San Diego’s late season swoon and enter today’s game just 2.5 back of the Padres. Los Angeles has underachieved all season and weren’t able to take advantage of the shakeup atop of the division. They’re still 10.5 games off the pace.

Colorado Rockies (Jimenez) at Los Angeles Dodgers (Kuroda)
September 18, 2010–7:10 PM Pacific

A combination of the urgency of being in a divisional title race and Rockies’ starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez combine to give us a nice value price on the home team. Colorado has one of the most profound home/away differentials in the sport. Colorado ranks among the best teams in the MLB at Coors Field with a 51-24 record, but away from home they’re just 29-42 -14.3 units. They’ve also underachieved against teams with losing record–YTD they’re just 29-29 -11 units against sub .500 teams and in the second half of the season they’re 13-13 -5.6 units in that situation.

Hard to argue with anything that Ubaldo Jimenez has done this season, but the Rockies have only won 9 of his 15 road starts (as opposed to 12 of 14 at home). He’s also not been quite as sharp in his last few starts, though his ERA in that stretch is a still solid 3.15. In recent games, he’s actually been outpitched by the Dodgers’ Hiroki Kuroda who has a tidy 1.66 ERA in his last three starts. The Dodgers have dominated the Rockies in head to head play at home with a 16-8 record during the last three years including 4 of 6 this season. With Kuroda in good form we’ll gladly back him at an attractive price against a team that’s nowhere near as good on the road as they are at home.

Bet LA Dodgers (Kuroda) +120 over Colorado (Jimenez)