MLB Baseball Betting: Pittsburgh Pirates at Chicago Cubs

Added on Jul 29, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

The Pittsburgh Pirates will try to keep pace with the NL Central leading Cincinnati Reds as they head to Chicago for an early week series against the Cubs. The Pirates have been playing excellent baseball in July posting a 16-8 record–their only problem is that the Cincinnati Reds are playing even better and have posted an 18-6 record this month. That leaves the Pirates 3 games back of the Reds for the divisional lead and means that the Pirates need to pick up every win they can. They dropped a game in Houston yesterday and will want to get that back here.

Pittsburgh Pirates at Chicago Cubs
July 30, 2012 5:05 PM Pacific

The Pirates have been the surprise team of the 2012 MLB season and it looks like they’ll avoid the late season swoon that doomed their postseason chances last year. They still need to pick up the pace if they want to catch the Cincinnati Reds and this will be a great opportunity to do so. The Cubs had a brief run of success earlier in the month but they’re now back to their mediocre form going 6-6 in their last 12 games. Chicago will start Justin Germano who will be making his first MLB start since late in the 2010 season. He’ll be countered by Pirates lefthander Erik Bedard who has picked up his game recently and has looked very sharp in his last three outings allowing only four earned runs in that stretch.

Pittsburgh has made a ton of money overall this season (+21.8 units) and has really cleaned up against opponents with losing records. Even after their loss to Houston yesterday the Pirates are 30-16 +13.6 units against sub .500 opponents. They’ve also done well against right handed pitchers (+15 units) and should have little problem hitting Germano. Bedard pitched against the Cubs recently–he allowed only 2 hits and 1 ER while striking out 11 in 7 innings of work on July 23. His teammates didn’t give him any run support, however, and he was saddled with a 2-0 loss despite pitching an absolute gem. Don’t expect that to happen again–the Pirates need wins, they’re in against a hittable pitcher and the Cubs have struggled against lefthanders this year going 11-18 -5.5 units.

Bet Pittsburgh Pirates (Bedard) -130 over Chicago Cubs (Germano)