MLB Baseball Betting for September 1, 2016
A very short MLB card on Thursday with only four games on the board. Here are our ‘best bets’:
MLB BASEBALL BETTING FOR SEPTEMBER 1, 2016:
SAN DIEGO PADRES AT ATLANTA BRAVES:
The Atlanta Braves are no longer the worst team in baseball. That dubious distinction now belongs to the AL Central bottom feeders, the Minnesota Twins at 49-84 and in the middle of a 13 game losing streak. The Braves are 50-83 after a Wednesday night victory over the San Diego Padres and now the Padres are trying to dig out of the basement. The Padres trail the Arizona Diamondbacks by 1/2 game as of this writing but with the Colorado Rockies up 8-2 on the LA Dodgers in the bottom of the 7th that could be a full game edge by tomorrow morning.
Atlanta has been a terrible team all season and particularly bad at Turner Field. They’re 21-43 -17.8 units on their home field but at the same time the Padres haven’t been much on the road (25-43 -6.4 units). After Wednesday’s loss the Padres have dropped 6 of 8 and things won’t get any easier for them as they head to Los Angeles for three games against the first place Dodgers followed by three home games against the Boston Red Sox. Atlanta has a much easier path with three games over the weekend against the Phillies in Philadelphia.
San Diego will start right hander Jarred Cosart who has pitched very well of late. In his last three starts he’s gone 16 2/3 innings allowing just 1 earned runs while striking out 12 against 6 walks. The downside–the Padres managed to lose two of these games. When your starting pitchers have a L3 ERA of 1.62 a team shouldn’t have a losing record but the Padres do. On 8/26 the bullpen blew up resulting in a 7-6 loss to the Miami Marlins. This was despite 5 innings of work from Cosart allowing 1 ER and 5 hits. On 8/13 it was the Padres’ sputtering offense that did them in. Cosart went 6 innings allowing 1 earned and 3 hits but the Padres went on to lose 3-2. Cosart has been mediocre at best in his four road starts this year. He’s got a 4.95 ERA allowing 11 ER in 20 innings of work with 13 walks and 9 strikeouts. The Padres have lost 3 of his 4 road assignments.
Matt Foltynewicz gets the start for Atlanta and given he pitches from the Braves has done fairly well this year. His W/L record isn’t much but then again neither is the Braves’. For all of their awful play this year they deserve credit for one thing–they haven’t quit on the season. That should be the difference maker in this game.
BET ATLANTA BRAVES -130 OVER SAN DIEGO PADRES
MIAMI MARLINS AT NEW YORK METS:
A couple of weeks ago this looked like an important series that could determine the outcome of the NL East. It hasn’t turned out that way as the Washington Nationals have re-established a sizable lead. Compounding the situation is the relative form of these teams. The Marlins have been playing horrible baseball and will by trying to stave off a four game sweep in this series. They’ve lost 4 straight and 7 of 10 and enter this contest 11 games out. The Mets are playing some of their best baseball of the year winning 8 of 10 and with 3 games on deck this weekend at home against the Washington Nationals. This is a vital series for the Mets since a poor showing would allow the Nationals to run away and hide.
Jose Urena gets the start for Miami. In his last start he faced San Diego where he went 5 2/3 innings allowing 4 hits and 1 earned run along with 6 strikeouts and 2 walks. The bad news was that his team hung him out to dry and gave him no support in a 1-0 loss. Jacob DeGrom has been in decent form for most of the year though he’s coming off of two horrible road starts in which he allowed a total of 25 hits and 13 runs at San Francisco and St. Louis. He’s been stellar at home this year with a 1.89 ERA in 12 starts–8 of which were NY Mets victories.
We don’t want any part of the Marlins in their current form so we’ll back the Mets and their excellent form and the more dependable DeGrom.
BET NEW YORK METS -190 OVER MIAMI MARLINS