MLB Baseball Preview: Chicago Cubs at Cincinnati Reds

Added on Jun 07, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Tuesday night serves up baseball action between a couple of NL Central rivals as the Cincinnati Reds host the Chicago Cubs. The Reds have been slumping over the past month and are now in third place in the division five games behind first place St. Louis. The Cubs are dropping like a rock currently in 5th place just 1 game ahead of basement dwelling Houston.

Chicago Cubs (Doug Davis) at Cincinnati Reds (Edson Volquez)
June 7, 2011 4:10 PM Pacific

Earlier in the season our strategy was to bet against the Cubs at Wrigley Field where they are consistently overvalued by the public. Our strategy now is to bet against them every time they take the field. Cubs are downright awful and have lost money in just about every situational setting. They’ve been a punching bag for NL Central rivals with a record at 7-20 -15.8 units. They’ve also lost a ton of money against RHP in 2011 (15-28 -14.4 units). Overall they’re 22-35 -13.5 units. in all games. They hit the ball reasonably well but they have one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball.

The Reds have been struggling but they continue to hit the ball well and have made money against divisional foes (23-13 +6 units. Cincinnati has a tough road trip ahead traveling to the West coast to take on San Francisco and Los Angeles. Reds haven’t posted a lot of wins against left handed pitching this year but they’ve brutalized southpaws at the plate hitting .296 and averaging 6.7 runs per game. Doug Davis checks in with a 5.95 ERA so we expect the Reds’ offensive numbers against lefthanders to improve here.

We’ll also play the Over, as much due to Cincinnati’s #26 team ERA (4.45) and Chicago’s #30 team ERA (4.75) than anything else. Cincy is #1 in runs scored and #6 in team batting average (.262). Cubs actually have a higher overall team batting average (.269 #3 in MLB). Reds have gone Over the total in 21 of 32 at home (9 Under, 2 push) and have gone Over in 21 of 35 against the NL Central. We look for the Reds to take out some frustrations and get another win against Chicago’s pitiful pitching staff. Cincy wins a high scoring game and we should cash both side and total bets.

Bet Cincinnati Reds (Volquez) -165 over Chicago Cubs (Davis)
Bet Cincinnati/Chicago Cubs Over 9′ -110