MLB Baseball Betting: Arizona Diamondbacks at Philadelphia Phillies
We’ll start right at the top of Saturday’s MLB baseball board as the Arizona Diamondbacks look to make it two for two as they continue their weekend series against the Philadelphia Phillies. Arizona had no trouble with the slumping Phillies on Friday beating up on their host by a final score of 10-2. Saturday’s contest promises to be more competitive as it features a very interesting pitching matchup between Arizona’s Zack Greinke and Philadelphia’s Jerad Eickhoff–more about that in a moment. The Diamondbacks are ‘treading water’ at the moment with a 5-5 record in their last ten games but the good news is that’s enough for them to gain some separation from last place San Diego who are *really* in the toilet losing 7 of 10. Arizona now leads San Diego by 3 games and are just 3.5 behind the Colorado Rockies who have been winning of late with a 7-3 record in their last ten games.
Philadelphia is slumping badly due primarily to a profound lack of offence. The Phillies started the season in decent form but they’ve lost 8 of 10 and four straight. They’re 4-12 -6.6 units for the month of June so they’ll certainly be happy to see July come around. There is one interesting thing about this matchup that we’ll talk about in the conclusion–they are 11-5 +10.8 units in games with a total of 7 or less. In other words, they’ve done very well in highly competitive pitchers duels. That has some logic since theoretically at least these types of games would make their pitiful hitting (averaging 2.9 runs per game hitting .220 at home) less of a problem.
The Phillies shouldn’t expect to get many hits against Diamondbacks starter Zack Greinke. Arizona has been somewhat dysfunctional this season with a better record on the road than at home and that’s also applied to Greinke. Overall he’s got a 3.75 ERA, a 1.174 WHIP and the Diamondbacks have won 10 of his 14 starts for a +5 unit profit. Not bad. The subtext is more interesting–Arizona is just 5-4 at home with Greinke pitching but on the road they’re a perfect 5-0 and he’s been stellar. Away from home he’s got a 1.54 ERA and a 0.914 WHIP along with 38 strikeouts and just 4 walks. He is showing improved form at home as well–two of his last three starts were at home and his last three ERA is 0.78 with a 0.783 WHIP and three Diamondback victories. He’s also thrown 19 strikeouts in a total of 23 innings of work.
Philadelphia’s Eickhoff is a talented young pitcher who has also been throwing well. His last three ERA is 1.37 and Philadelphia won two of the starts which is significant given their pitiful form. And about that 11-5 record in games with a total of 7 or less. That’s impressive but Milwaukee hits the ball pretty well and with the Phillies unable to hit mediocre pitching we don’t see them doing much against Greinke.
BET ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS -175 OVER PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
BET ARIZONA/PHILADELPHIA UNDER 7 +105
