Baseball Betting Picks: Philadelphia Phillies at Miami Marlins

Added on Jun 29, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

NL East action this weekend as the Philadelphia Phillies travel to South Florida to take on the Miami Marlins. Before the season started there was plenty of expectation that these games would be significant for both teams and they are–but not for the reasons that people expected. The Marlins and Phills have been two of the most disappointing teams in baseball and this is improbably a battle to stay out of last place in the NL East. Currently the Marlins hold a 1/2 game lead over Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Phillies at Miami Marlins
June 29, 2012 4:10 PM Pacific

The Miami Marlins are actually coming off a win, which has been a very rare situation indeed over the past few weeks. Miami’s performance during the month of June has been downright embarrassing. They’ve lost 9 of their last 12 games and 18 of their last 24. Year to date they’ve cost baseball betting enthusiasts nearly 12 units. The team has talent to be sure but during their June swoon virtually the entire team under-performed as the Marlins found new ways to lose games they should win.

The Philadelphia Phillies haven’t been much better. They enter this contest having lost 7 of their last 12 games and have posted a record of 9-16 during the month of June. Philadelphia entered the season with the expectation that they’d contend for a divisional title but instead they’ve become one of the biggest money losers in baseball. Overall they’ve lost 16.3 units on the season but they’ve actually turned a small (+0.4 units) profit on the road. Clearly their real struggle has been their inability to establish any sort of home field advantage.

Both teams will start highly capable pitchers that have underachieved this season. Cliff Lee has been one of the best lefthanders in baseball in recent seasons but he’s been in awful form this year. Lee checks in with a 3.72 ERA overall and the Phillies have lost 9 of his 12 starts YTD. His recent performances have been even worse with the Phillies losing his last three assignments during which Lee has put up an ERA of 6.30. Josh Johnson is actually starting to round into form and he’s looked very sharp in his last three starts but unfortunately the Marlins haven’t given him much help. Johnson has a 1.80 ERA during that stretch but the Marlins managed to lose two of those three games.

Despite the disparity in the recent form of the pitchers we have more confidence in Philadelphia’s ability to turn things around than Miami’s. The Marlins haven’t won back to back games in nearly a month so until they string a few victories together we’ll continue to bet against the floundering fish.

Bet Philadelphia Phillies (Lee) -110 over Miami Marlins (Johnson)