This article is part of our MLB Picks series.
Previous day: 2-1-1, +0.68 RWBucks
Season: 72-92-4, -28.97 RWBucks
Man, has it really been three months? This season has seemed to fly by in a blur of injuries and rule changes and strikeouts and more injuries. The enjoyment of just having baseball back after a pandemic-shortened season carried us through in a spring when the game itself didn't always love us back, but even that is wearing off a bit as spring turns to summer.
In this space, well, I think Monday's Angels-Yankees game, given out here as the over 10, serves as a pretty good summation. As expected, Dylan Bundy allowed two runs his first time through the lineup. As not expected, he left at that point with heat exhaustion — it's a miserable week here in the city — leaving the Angels to get 5.1 great innings from a better pitcher in Jose Suarez. The game ended 5-3 as the teams combined to go 0-for-14 with runners in scoring position.
It's been a rough half. I'm thinking a lot about other models, whether John Laghezza's fractional-unit betting; sticking only with first-five betting; or even a combination of both along with spraying the board that would generate 15-20 individual bets a night while still leaving less than 10 units a day in play. There's also the idea that maybe my processes are mostly fine, but I'm making some global error some floating point nonsense, that's screwing everything up just a little.
It also could be that I'm fine and have just been taking the variance bat to the shorts for three months. At least for Wednesday, to close out the first three months, let's act as if that's what's happening.
7 p.m. Yankees (German) -137 over Angels (Ohtani).
Having written a Valentine to Shohei Ohtani, having the most incredible month of any player since Babe Ruth in June 1919, it's as good a moment as any to fade him. Ohtani's strong month of pitching has been built upon a foundation of throwing strikes, especially strike one. Most of that has come against inferior lineups, however. Let's take the Yankees at home at a short price against an Angels team that's been picked apart by injuries. 1 RWBuck.
7 p.m. Mariners (Sheffield)/Blue Jays (Matz) over 10.5 (-112).
This is a bet on Sahlen Field in Buffalo, now the best hitters' park in baseball. Neither starter is good, and the Mariners are at least competent against lefties, giving them a fighting chance to lose 7-4 or thereabouts. 1.5 RWBucks.
8 p.m. Astros (Garcia) -1.5 (-148) over Orioles (Harvey).
The Astros have managed to lose two in a row at home to the Orioles, giving up 22 runs in the process. The Astros got caught out last night when starter Jose Urquidy left the game in the second, eventually needing to use utilityman Robel Garcia to finish the game (1 IP, 4R). Wednesday they put another good starter on the mound against Matt Harvey, a run machine. There's no such thing as a zig-zag theory in baseball, but sometimes, you can safely bet on regression to reality. 1.5 RWBucks.
