Free Baseball Bet May1'09: Cincinnati (B.Arroyo/R) @ Pittsburgh (Z.Duke/L)

The Reds come to town for a divisional matchup against the Pirates today. This is a pure splits matchup for a bettor, as there are some very stark statistical differences to observe.

Let's have a look at each team's situational hitting outputs thus far this year:

	OPS vs L	OPS vs R	Road OPS	Home OPS
Cincinnati	.586	.731	.675	.696
Pittsburgh	.678	.763	.683	.841

As can be seen in the splits that matter today, Cincinnati could be in some trouble on the road against a lefty. Meanwhile, being at home against a righty is the ideal setup for the Pittsburgh lineup (even more so if Nate McLouth returns from a week long absence, as he is expected to today).

Zach Duke, who has looked good to start the year, is the lefty taking the hill for Pittsburgh. He has posted an outstanding FIP of 3.16 to start the year and appears poised to do well against this Reds lineup that relies on heavy hitting lefty batters for success. Meanwhile, Bronson Arroyo has not done horribly over his career versus current Pirates' hitters, allowing only a .760 OPS against them. But his hideous 5.88 FIP has not been encouraging and he is coming off an outing where he allowed 9 ER in 5 2/3 innings against a Braves team that has not been stellar this year.

In the bullpens, the Pirates have had better success than the Reds, posting a 1.35 WHIP vs a 1.47 WHIP respectively.

Odds are this game gets decided early, so I would not fault you for making a wager on the first 5 innings. However, I am cranking up the value and expecting a blowout.

Free Baseball Bets Pick: PIT -1.5 +160

Free Baseball Bet Apr30'09: Los Angeles A (A.Ortega/R) @ New York (A.J.Burnett/R)

Back at the new Yankee stadium, these teams face off tonight in a park that has been generous to the long ball this year. The new park has been the location producing the highest combined OPS in the majors thus far in 2009, at a whopping .905. It has been said that the wind patterns are blowing balls over the RF fence at alarming rates, and it looks like the wind is up above 10 MPH tonight.

Pitching are the extremely fresh faced Anthony Ortega (with one MLB start to his name) and the inconsistent A.J. Burnett. Ortega has not been good in limited action in the bigs, posting a 7+ FIP, while Burnett has been somewhere in the middle with a 4.01 FIP. Ortega is not a strikeout pitcher, and has generally tried to keep the ball on the ground, averaging a slightly higher than 45% GB rate. But he has had bad outings with the Angels and at AAA Salt Lake, and in 18.2 innings combined this year he has allowed 4 HR. Burnett has done decently against the Angels in his career, limiting them to a combined team OPS of .772 and a .247 BA. Not having Vladimir Guerrero is actually not a huge loss tonight for Anaheim, as he has been below average against Burnett with just a .735 OPS against him in career matchups. The newly acquired Bobby Abreu has been productive against A.J. though, posting .919 OPS in 58 ABs.

Versus RH pitchers, both teams are above average for the MLB, with NYY having a combined .777 OPS thus far and LAA having a nice .791 OPS. Beyond the starters, neither bullpen has been great this year, with WHIPs of 1.40 (NYY) and 1.70 (LAA) combined thus far in 2009.

This is a game to expect runs.

Free Baseball Bets pick: OVER 10.5 -110

Free Baseball Bet Apr30'09: St. Louis (M.Boggs/R) @ Washington (D.Cabrera/R)

The Nationals have shown early flash, some coming from new off-season acquisition Adam Dunn, but their results in 2009 have been sadly...what you would expect from the Nationals. Without stellar pitching outings, this is not a team likely to go out and compete for a winning record. And their 5-15 mark to date shows it.

And beltway mainstay Daniel Cabrera, twirling tonight, has been far from stellar this year. In fact, his FIP of 5.27 borders on atrocious. Why so high? If you have followed Cabrera much of his career, you would likely guess: walks...and you would be right. In 18.1 innings to date, he has put on 12 men via the free pass; sprinkle in 22 hits and his 1.85 WHIP stands out like a bad Christmas sweater at a mandatory family get together - unfortunately, Nats fans are the unfortunate family members that have to endure it, and at the ballpark, they cutoff liquor sales. What makes this a particularly bad matchup tonight for Cabrera is that he is facing a St. Louis team that is very patient, tied for 8th most walks in the majors, and likely to take advantage of Cabrera's wildness. Oh yeah...against right-handed pitchers this year, St. Louis has been hit happy and have posted a .895 OPS (2nd in MLB) thus far this year to prove it.

Meanwhile, the Cards will place young Mitchell Boggs on the hill. With limited MLB experience, he has started 2009 well with a tiny 2.42 FIP, allowing just 1 ER in 7.2 innings against the Cubs. Not a high strikeout pitcher, Boggs has a history of keeping the ball on the ground with a GB% that has hovered around 50% in the minors & majors both. Backing him up is a bullpen that has been solid, and is anchored by the near unhittable Ryan Franklin. Meanwhile, unlike the Cards, the Nats have been below average against righties and have put up a measly .736 OPS against them.

The only thing worth knowing from an injury standpoint for this game is that the Cardinals are likely going to be without Ryan Ludwick for the 2nd straight game; but as a RH bat, it is not such a huge loss since they will likely dress an outfield full of good hitting lefties in Ankiel, Duncan and Rasmus.

At a price not overly expensive, time to jump on the Cards tonight.

Free Baseball Bets Pick: St. Louis -122

Free Baseball Bets goes 0-1 yesterday

With one rain out, our only live pick yesterday went poorly. Unfortunately, the bad start to the season for Kazmir continued, and the Twins took advantage early and often at home. Blackburn, as expected, had a nice outing against the Rays. But, we still missed the total line by a full 3 runs.

Look for a strong comeback with today's picks - I have a good feeling about the matchups selected.

Free Baseball Bet Apr29'09: Tampa Bay (S.Kazmir/L) vs. Minnesota (N.Blackburn/R)

The Rays and Twins are not teams that have torn the cover off the ball thus far in '09. Tampa is a combined .773 OPS, while Minnesota is just .707 in the On-Base Plus Slugging category.

More specific to today's matchup, the OPS data is especially grim for one of these teams:

	vs Righties	vs Lefties
Minnesota		.604
Tampa	.784

Most of Tampa's order has either not yet had a chance to face Blackburn or only seen him in one AB thus far in their respective careers. Thus, they are not likely to be comfortable facing him in the Metrodome. Meanwhile, Kazmir has owned most Twins hitters by allowing just a combined .575 OPS - the only exception being Morneau (1.083 OPS vs Kazmir), who can likely be pitched around. The Twins not having Mauer continues to leave a hole in their lineup until he comes off the DL (expected later this week).

Thus far this year, Kazmir has gotten off to a somewhat slow start and a 5.13 FIP, which is probably why the posted betting total is not even lower. But, this should be overcome by the great matchup data above and that he has always been a decent Road pitcher. Blackburn has seen his peripherals come into nice form this year, generating a low 3.73 FIP. Plus, he likes pitching in the Metrodome so much he posted just a 2.96 ERA at home last year.

Resulting Free Baseball Bets pick:

UNDER 8 +100

Free Baseball Bet Apr29'09: Oakland (J.Outman/L) vs. Texas (V.Padilla/R)

The ballpark in Arlington has been fertile ground for run scoring this year, as it often is most years. So much so that it ranks only second behind the new Yankee Stadium in ballpark OPS rankings, at .905. Contributing to that is a Texas team that has hit a massive .940 OPS for the year on their own, when playing at home.

This prolific Texas team also loves to hit lefties this year, to the tune of an .875 OPS - right handed mashers Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, Nelson Cruz and even Andruw Jones have all taken turns putting up large games. Meanwhile, Oakland bats have been rather underwhelming overall this year; but, they have averaged more than 5 runs per game in their last three.

What really sets this Free Baseball Bet up nicely is the weak starting pitching duo taking the hill. Texas hitters have ripped Outman to the tune of a .924 OPS and a .367 BA. Meanwhile, the big three hitters of Oakland, Giambi/Cust/Holliday, have put up equally similar strength OPS numbers against Padilla - plus, two of the OAK hitters Padilla has actually pitched well against, Ellis and Chavez, appear to be out of the lineup today. Thus far in the year 2009, Outman has posted a brutal 6.71 FIP and Padilla has put up a near equally bad 5.98 FIP. Neither of these pitchers seem poised to turn that around today.

Taking this all into consideration, the following wager is worth the price:

OVER 10.5 -125

Bad day yesterday, let's start a new rally

Misses on both picks yesterday, though STL was much closer than CHW.

So, what happened?

With the STL game, I was bang on with Lohse's ability to tame the Braves' bats; but, where things likely went wrong was underestimating how poorly the Cardinals are hitting lefties this year. With Pujols having an uncharacteristically poor game, their offense was not done any favors either.

In regards to SEA vs. CHW, this was likely a dual error: overestimation of Danks' fast start, combined with running smack into what appears to be the early stages of a King Felix hot streak (no Thome also did not help the White Sox). I probably should have taken a closer look at the FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching stat) for these pitchers, which stand at 3.03 for Hernandez and 4.28 for Danks. It may be time to consider playing on Felix for this next little while - his ability to get hot in April is an annual occurrence.

Some things to keep in mind for future picks.