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Picks for 5/15/09: Padres in a Rut Bet Against Them
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Rivalry Page: Reds vs Padres
Result: -1.18 units
Cincinnati Reds (-120) over San Diego Padres (1.0 Units) - First off, these Reds are on an offensive tear. They are averaging 8.2 runs a game L5 and even 6.5 runs a game L10.
And despite the fact that these Reds are on the road, we see that they are actually better on the road. ..(13-5)
The Padres, however, are in a rut. They are just simply losing every opportunity they have. And things will not get better for them right now. They were swept in two consecutive road series and now travel back home to play these surging Reds.
So we've got the tale of two completely different teams on two completely different paths facing off in a duel. That is not going to bode well for the Padres today. They have to travel from the kinda the east coast to the west coast after getting swept. And their home stadium is not exactly conducive to offense.
We have trouble seeing the Padres turning game 1 around.
Testing this theory is quite simple. Just see how home dogs in non-divisional rivalry games do when they are coming off being swept on the road. We plug it into our systems and find that the road favorite is undervalued, on average, by about 10 points the past 11 seasons. They are undervalued by 15 points when we add in some offensive angles.
Take this game action regardless of pitcher.
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Houston Astros (147) over Chicago Cubs (1.5 Units) - We bet against these Astros yesterday and LOST but we were also clear to say that there weren't any rea reasons to bet against them. Just that there were so many more reasons to bet for the Rockies.
But now these Astros are huge dogs on the road against the Cubs. They shoudn't be. They are averaging almost 8 runs a game L5 and almost 6 runs a game L10. What you need to realize is that dogs in a divisional rivalry game tend to be money. PERIOD. And it gets better when you start adding in additional angles like the team having 6 or more wins L10 or averaging so many runs a game as these Astros are.
And the reason we bump the value of this pick to a Game of the Week caliber play is the fact that these Cubs are just historically overvalued.
