Pitching Matchup: Randy Wells vs. Joe Blanton
LV Money Line Open: PHI -150
LV Over / Under Open: 8.5
It actually happened: Roy Halladay lost two straight games. I was dreading this immensely, not so much because it meant that the Phils lost another game, but more so because of the "What's Wrong With Roy?" articles that are sure to follow. If you thought chatter about his diminished velocity was overdone, be prepared for triple the volume of articles now. All of this isn't to suggest that there is nothing wrong with Halladay, but I think Bill Baer made an excellent argument the other day why we shouldn't be concerned yet.
Just as I mentioned yesterday I thought there was a lot of value to betting on the Cubs, I think the opposite is true today: there should value in betting on the Phils. People are down on the Phillies right now, mostly for good reasons, but probably overly so. The human mind is extremely biased by recent events (or things), so the Halladay loss plus the Phillies offensive struggles plus Joe Blanton's last outing are all pushing the line toward the Cubs (down to PHI -140 most places). The model is certainly influenced by recent events, but that influence is of the Bayesian variety. This doesn't mean the model is right and bettors are wrong, but past history shows that there are many baseball stats that don't start to be reliable until about 150 plate appearances, and we ain't there yet. So the pre-season forecasts still represent the majority of the statistical inputs. Joe Blanton pitched reasonably well last outing and definitely better than his pitching line suggested (damn Luck Dragons!). I'm thinking he bounces back today and the Phils win.
The O/U seems to be set pretty dead on, with 52.5% of sims going under 8.5 (47.5% going over for the mathematically challenged). I don't see much value in betting either way, so stick with taking the Phils at -140 and I think you'll be happy that you did.
Go Phils!
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