MLB Baseball Betting: San Francisco Giants at Pittsburgh Pirates
Two teams going in opposite directions will play on Thursday as the Pittsburgh Pirates host the San Francisco Giants. The Giants have been in great form of late. They’ve opened up a 5.5 game lead atop the NL West and have won 9 of their last 10 (all records pending the outcome of Wednesday’s game). They’re 12-6 in the month of June and with the rest of the division doing very little they could continue to build on their advantage. The Pittsburgh Pirates are heading in the other direction–they’re a pitiful 5-15 -11.2 units in the month of June and have lost 8 of their last 10. They’re now just 2.5 games up on the fourth place Milwaukee Brewers and 6 games up on the last place Cincinnati Reds.
Not exactly a marquee pitching matchup for this game. San Francisco will send right hander Albert Suarez to the mound for his fourth start of the year. He’s been largely ineffective to date with the Giants losing two of his three previous starts. The’s got a 4.50 ERA overall and a 5.58 ERA in two road starts. Suarez is a rookie so he’s being cut some slack and he’s rejoining the rotation due to Matt Cain being placed on the 15 day DL. He’ll be opposed by veteran lefthander Jon Niese who has been a capable starter throughout his career but isn’t in particularly good form at the moment. Niese has a 4.74 ERA overall with the Pirates winning 8 of his 14 starts. They’ve won 4 of 7 at home where Niese has a 4.46 ERA. In his last three starts he’s got a 6.12 ERA and a 1.586 WHIP with the Bucs losing two of those three games.
The Pirates are just kind of a mess right now and they may be on the verge of ‘blowing up’ the team and hitting the reset button. Andrew McCutchen is reportedly on the trading block which signals a desire to stockpile some prospects. That might not be a bad move longterm but it doesn’t exactly send a positive signal to the team at this point. The Giants have made money against left handers this year (15-10 +5.2 units) and they’re tough to go against with their recent form.
BET SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS -110 OVER PITTSBURGH PIRATES
