Baseball Betting Picks: Pittsburgh Pirates at Colorado Rockies
Added on Jul 15, 2012 by Jack Thurman in
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More National League baseball action on Monday as the Pittsburgh Pirates head West to take on the woeful Colorado Rockies. The Pirates had their share of trouble with Milwaukee this weekend losing two of three games and with them the NL Central lead–they currently trail the Cincinnati Reds by 1/2 game pending the outcome of Sunday night’s Reds/Cardinals matchup. The Colorado Rockies, on the other hand, are arguably the worst team in baseball. They’re in the mix for the worst record in baseball (Houston currently holds that dubious distinction) but objectively speaking may have less ‘upside’ than any team in the sport.
Pittsburgh Pirates at Colorado Rockies
July 16, 2012 5:40 PM Pacific
We’ll admit to be downright puzzled by the way the market has treated this Pittsburgh Pirates team. There seems to be a prevailing wisdom that the Pirates are ‘destined’ to have a late season collapse like the did last year. Never mind that nothing they’ve done so far validates that theory–but for whatever reason baseball betting enthusiasts are already waving the ‘sell’ sign. To be fair, you want to be ahead of streaks of any type but in a sport with 162 games it’ll be easy enough to ‘pivot’ and start fading the Pirates should they start playing poorly.
In any case, it’s a very tough sell to justify betting on the Colorado Rockies in any circumstance. To be fair, today’s starter–Jeff Francis–is a solid veteran and has pitched reasonably well since joining the team. Most surprisingly the Rockies have actually won 5 of his 7 assignments. He definitely deserves credit for performing well in a horrible setting for any pitcher, but we’re not sure that justifies him being favored here. Pittsburgh has made money this season facing left handed pitchers (14-9 +6.3 units) and they’ve definitely taken advantage of matchups against losing teams–against opponents with records of .500 or below the Bucs are 22-12 +11.1 units.
No matter how you slice the Rockies’ performance this season it’s been awful. They’re coming off a series loss to the struggling Phillies which has dropped them to 19-27 -10.4 units at home. They’re 25-36 -7.2 units against right handed pitching and 34-54 -16.3 units overall. We like the professionalism that Francis has shown since joining the Rockies, but not as much as we like a team with a proven track record of beating up on weaker opponents in the midst of a pennant race.
Bet Pittsburgh Pirates (Karstens) +105 over Colorado Rockies (Francis)
