MLB Betting Free Picks: Pittsburgh @ Chicago Cubs

Added on May 16, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

Plenty of baseball betting opportunities for sports betting on Sunday, and we’ll go back to the National League where the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs will be wrapping up a three game set. Pittsburgh has been a veritable ATM machine so far in this series, winning the first two games for over 4 units of profit!

Pittsburgh Pirates (Ross Ohlender) at Chicago Cubs (Ted Lilly)
May 16, 11:20 AM Pacific

We’re not ready to take a futures position on the Pirates to win the World Series, but they’ve been playing much better baseball of late. They’re 5-5 in their last 10 games and are up to third place in the NL Central. The Cubs, meanwhile, are only 1.5 games ahead of last place Houston and have lost 8 of their last 10. As we’ve discussed before, this is a classic case of teams that are overvalued and undervalued respectively by the casual fan which is reflected in the prices linesmakers set. The Cubs are historically an overvalued side–and particularly at home where they’re 8-10 on the year and have dropped 9 units. Pittsburgh is the frequent butt of jokes by sportscaster types, but they’ve now made +6 units for bettors on the year. Given the current form of the teams and pitchers involved, the huge chalk price on the Cubs is absurd.

Ross Ohlender has only started two games this year, but checks in with a respectable 3.00 ERA. Ted Lilly, on the other hand, is something of an enigma. He looked very good in his first start of the season after starting the year on the DL, but the Cubs have lost his last three starts with Lilly putting up some pretty bad numbers. Lilly has a 4.87 ERA overall with a 6.75 mark at home. Note that the Pirates are 7-4 +8.4 units against southpaws. Basically, this is another value play on the Pirates and there’s no reason they can’t complete the sweep. Cubs are now 0-4 -8.2 units as a home favorite of -175 or higher in 2010.

Bet Pittsburgh Pirates (Ohlender) +215 over Chicago Cubs (Lilly)