Baseball Betting: Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh Pirates

Added on Jul 24, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Game 2 of an important NL Central set in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night as the hometime Pirates take on the Chicago Cubs. The Pirates bats were silenced on Monday as the Cubs won 2-0 and lefthander Paul Maholm will look to repeat the performance tonight. While the Pirates were losing at home on Monday their divisional rivals the Cincinnati Reds were winning in Houston to add to their lead. Pittsburgh now trails Cincinnati by 1.5 games.

Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh Pirates
July 24, 2012 4:05 PM Pacific

It might be unfair to suggest that the Pittsburgh Pirates are ‘going in the tank’ based on the result of one game, but their dismal hitting performance on Monday night definitely raises some red flags. But then again, the Cubs put on their own clinic of offensive futility in St. Louis over the weekend as they scored only 1 run in three games. In other words, this could be a pitcher’s duel as the Cubs and Pirates tangle in the ‘Steel City’ tonight.

The Pirates have been a profitable team this season and have performed well at home but–it must be noted–they have been subject to several ‘power outages’ this season where they go for a number of games without generating much offense. At least they should be in good shape on the mound, where James McDonald has an impressive 1.69 ERA and the Pirates have won 6 of his 10 starts. Of course that didn’t help things last night when Pittsburgh squandered a strong effort from Erik Bedard en route to a 2-0 loss.

The Cubs will counter with lefthander Paul Maholm who has been streaky this year but is currently in good form. Maholm has allowed only one earned run in his last three assignments, averaging 7 innings of work per game for a 1.29 ERA in that stretch. More importantly, the Cubs won all three of those games. This is a setting where we’re going to look past each team’s YTD numbers and focus on the pitching matchup. We expect to see a very low scoring game which means we’ll look to play ‘Under’ the total. On the side, with runs likely at a premium the value appears to be on the visiting Cubbies. We don’t play on Chicago often but they look to be a good position here.

Bet Chicago Cubs (Maholm) +165 over Pittsburgh Pirates (McDonald)
Bet Chicago Cubs/Pittsburgh Pirates Under 7.5 -115