MLB Baseball Betting: Arizona Diamondbacks at Philadelphia Phillies

The Arizona Diamondbacks probably don’t want to leave Philadelphia. Following a 5-1 win on Sunday they’ve now won 6 of 8 and can sweep the Phillies with a win in their Monday series finale. The Diamondbacks are starting to reel in the third place team in the National League West, the Colorado Rockies and are now just 1.5 games back. They remain 3 games ahead of last place San Diego who also won today. Right now the San Francisco Giants are red hot and atop the NL West having won 8 straight and 9 of 10 but if Arizona can continue playing good baseball San Francisco could take a downturn and the Diamondbacks would be right back in the race.

Philadelphia is a train wreck and manager Pete Mackanin is apparently out of ideas. Their most obvious problem is an inability to generate any offense but it’s not like they’re tearing it up in other phases of the game either. The main thing is that the Phillies are losing game after game. They started the season in reasonably good form but have gone in the toilet over the past six weeks. They enter this game having lost six straight and 9 of 10. For the month of June, they’re 4-14 -8.6 units. Unless something turns around quickly it’s hard to see Mackanin lasting out the Summer. He seems to be overwhelmed and for whatever reason the team isn’t responding to him. He pulled the old ‘closed door meeting’ gimmick last week and it didn’t appear to make any sort of impact.

From a betting standpoint, however, it doesn’t look like the market has caught up with just how bad Philadelphia is. The recreational bettors are slow to pick up changes in team form in every sport and baseball can be one of the slowest. The Atlanta Braves have been the doormat of the National League for most of the year but they’ve won five straight. Philadelphia is far worse than Atlanta at this point but prices against them are reasonable. Many baseball handicappers like to blindly ‘bet against the sweep’ but I’m not going to do what here. Teams that are trying to turn their season around like Arizona is look for every win they can get and they should get one easily here.

BET ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS -105 OVER PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES