Baseball Betting Picks: Cincinnati Reds at Arizona Diamondbacks

Added on Aug 27, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

A couple of teams looking for ‘traction’ down the stretch face off in the desert today as the Arizona Diamondbacks host the Cincinnati Reds. Cincinnati has a 6 game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals and an 8 game lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates but they could have a much larger lead had they not been treading water of late (5-5 L10 games). Arizona is trying to reassert themselves in the competitive mix atop the NL West–they’re 7 games back of division leading San Francisco and 5 games behind second place Los Angeles.

Cincinnati Reds at Arizona Diamondbacks
August 27, 2012 6:40 PM Pacific

It’s easy to get caught up in these teams relative positions within their divisions and assume it’s a fairly competitive matchup. The reality is that the Reds are a highly superior team to the Diamondbacks–Arizona is a .500 team while Cincinnati is tied with Washington for most wins in Major League Baseball with 77. The Diamondbacks have been a very mediocre home team this year going 33-31 at home which equates to a loss of -9.4 units. The Reds haven’t been as good on the road as they are at home but they are well over .500 and more importantly solidly in the black with a +6.2 unit profit.

Reds will start Bronson Arroyo who has been very sharp in his most recent starts–in his last three assignments Arroyo has a 2.82 ERA and a 0.940 WHIP in three Cincinnati victories. Diamondbacks will counter with talented young southpaw Tyler Skaggs who looked good in his MLB debut going 6.7 innings and allowing only 2 ER against Miami. Of course he’s facing a far superior offense here and one that has his left handers very well and posted a 25-15 +7.6 unit profit against southpaws.

These teams split a four game series at Cincinnati earlier this summer but the Reds have won 4 of the last 6 on Arizona’s home field. More importantly, they’re just the better team top to bottom and the value play is taking the better team at a very attractive price. We’ll look toward the visiting Reds throughout this three game set–we expect them to do no worse than two of three and the sweep is not out of question.

Bet Cincinnati Reds (Arroyo) +100 over Arizona Diamondbacks (Skaggs)