MLB Betting: Strasburg Heavy Favorite in Debut Against Pirates
A day after taking Las Vegas wunderkind Bryce Harper with the No. 1 pick, the Nationals send last year's top overall selection to the home mound against the Pirates.
Planet Earth has made one trip around the sun since Stephen Strasburg was selected as the top player in baseball's amateur draft on June 9, 2009. The pressure on the young right-hander has been building ever since, and some of that pressure will be relieved when he takes to the Nationals Park mound for his MLB debut on Tuesday.
Strasburg carries the pressure of being the nation's No. 1 draft choice. There is the pressure of the contract super agent Scott Boras negotiated, more than $15 million for four years, the most ever for a draft selection. There is the pressure of stepping immediately into the role of Washington's staff ace.
And then there's the pressure that baseball bettors will place on the kid with the Nats drawing 170 and higher chalk when the early MLB odds were released Monday afternoon. Those lines almost immediately were corrected by the consumers to sit in the 190-210 ranges Tuesday morning.
Tuesday night's total opened at eight and still holds there at a few shops, though 8½ is more prevalent.
Some will be in auto-fade mode with a money line set that high no matter what Strasburg's minor league numbers were. Others will simply follow regardless of the price, banking on Strasburg having a successful debut.
Pittsburgh comes into Tuesday's game 23-34 on the season after a 6-1 loss at home on Monday to the Cubs. The Bucs were 130 underdogs in the game, a makeup from a rainout last Wednesday, and plus two units at the window in 2010.
Washington enters the series four games below par at 27-31, but up 6.7 units at the window thanks to a fast start to the season.
Each of Strasburg's 11 minor league starts were covered in detail by a much larger than normal media contingency as far as minor league games go. That media coverage will pale in comparison to the press at Tuesday's contest.
His combined Double- and Triple-A stats are impressive, to say the least. Strasburg posted a 1.30 ERA in 55 1/3 innings, whiffing 65, walking just 13 and posting a 0.795 WHIP. But the bigger numbers going forward as I discussed in a previous article will be his pitch and inning counts.
Strasburg averaged about 71 tosses per game in his 11 starts down on the farm. It's hard to imagine the club allowing him more than about 80 in his debut, and anything over 90 the rest of the season will surprise me. He's only due to get in another 100-110 innings this season, meaning his 2010 ledger could close in early September.
The good news for chalk eaters who will follow Strasburg is Washington's bullpen is much improved over recent seasons. Matt Capps has 18 saves to four blown efforts at the back of the relief corps. Tyler Clippard has done a fantastic job setting Capps up with his deceptive delivery. Miguel Batista, Tyler Walker and Sean Burnett, the lefty specialist, have also added to the mix.
Pittsburgh's Jeff Karstens (3-1, 4.50) will be charged with opposing Strasburg in this one. It would be interesting to know how many people bet this game without knowing who the Pirates' starter is.
Karstens has pitched pretty well between the rotation and pen so far, with this his fifth start to go with six relief appearances. Three of his four previous starts have qualified as quality outings. Take away one bad assignment in Los Angeles and a poor relief outing against the Reds, and his ERA is in the mid-2.00's.
He started one of the Pirates' wins in DC last May, lasting six frames and allowing four runs, all earned. A blown save in the bottom of the ninth cost Karstens the win in the contest, though Pittsburgh would eventually prevail by an 8-5 count in extra innings.
It's the first meeting of the season between the two squads with the Pirates taking five of the eight meetings in '09. Pittsburgh won three of the four in DC all as small underdogs. Five of the eight battles last season made 'over' bettors happy.
Mother Nature looks to be in a cooperative mood for the big game. The DC evening should see some clouds but only a 20 percent chance of any rain with the forecast suggesting that won't come until after the contest ends.
NOTE: The W-L records shown for starting pitchers are their team's W-L mark when they started games in the 2010 season. Statistical sources for this article were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, ESPN.com and, of course, S-BEE-R-dot-com!
A day after taking Las Vegas wunderkind Bryce Harper with the No. 1 pick, the Nationals send last year's top overall selection to the home mound against the Pirates.
Planet Earth has made one trip around the sun since Stephen Strasburg was selected as the top player in baseball's amateur draft on June 9, 2009. The pressure on the young right-hander has been building ever since, and some of that pressure will be relieved when he takes to the Nationals Park mound for his MLB debut on Tuesday.
Strasburg carries the pressure of being the nation's No. 1 draft choice. There is the pressure of the contract super agent Scott Boras negotiated, more than $15 million for four years, the most ever for a draft selection. There is the pressure of stepping immediately into the role of Washington's staff ace.
And then there's the pressure that baseball bettors will place on the kid with the Nats drawing 170 and higher chalk when the early MLB odds were released Monday afternoon. Those lines almost immediately were corrected by the consumers to sit in the 190-210 ranges Tuesday morning.
Tuesday night's total opened at eight and still holds there at a few shops, though 8½ is more prevalent.
Some will be in auto-fade mode with a money line set that high no matter what Strasburg's minor league numbers were. Others will simply follow regardless of the price, banking on Strasburg having a successful debut.
Pittsburgh comes into Tuesday's game 23-34 on the season after a 6-1 loss at home on Monday to the Cubs. The Bucs were 130 underdogs in the game, a makeup from a rainout last Wednesday, and plus two units at the window in 2010.
Washington enters the series four games below par at 27-31, but up 6.7 units at the window thanks to a fast start to the season.
Each of Strasburg's 11 minor league starts were covered in detail by a much larger than normal media contingency as far as minor league games go. That media coverage will pale in comparison to the press at Tuesday's contest.
His combined Double- and Triple-A stats are impressive, to say the least. Strasburg posted a 1.30 ERA in 55 1/3 innings, whiffing 65, walking just 13 and posting a 0.795 WHIP. But the bigger numbers going forward as I discussed in a previous article will be his pitch and inning counts.
Strasburg averaged about 71 tosses per game in his 11 starts down on the farm. It's hard to imagine the club allowing him more than about 80 in his debut, and anything over 90 the rest of the season will surprise me. He's only due to get in another 100-110 innings this season, meaning his 2010 ledger could close in early September.
The good news for chalk eaters who will follow Strasburg is Washington's bullpen is much improved over recent seasons. Matt Capps has 18 saves to four blown efforts at the back of the relief corps. Tyler Clippard has done a fantastic job setting Capps up with his deceptive delivery. Miguel Batista, Tyler Walker and Sean Burnett, the lefty specialist, have also added to the mix.
Pittsburgh's Jeff Karstens (3-1, 4.50) will be charged with opposing Strasburg in this one. It would be interesting to know how many people bet this game without knowing who the Pirates' starter is.
Karstens has pitched pretty well between the rotation and pen so far, with this his fifth start to go with six relief appearances. Three of his four previous starts have qualified as quality outings. Take away one bad assignment in Los Angeles and a poor relief outing against the Reds, and his ERA is in the mid-2.00's.
He started one of the Pirates' wins in DC last May, lasting six frames and allowing four runs, all earned. A blown save in the bottom of the ninth cost Karstens the win in the contest, though Pittsburgh would eventually prevail by an 8-5 count in extra innings.
It's the first meeting of the season between the two squads with the Pirates taking five of the eight meetings in '09. Pittsburgh won three of the four in DC all as small underdogs. Five of the eight battles last season made 'over' bettors happy.
Mother Nature looks to be in a cooperative mood for the big game. The DC evening should see some clouds but only a 20 percent chance of any rain with the forecast suggesting that won't come until after the contest ends.
NOTE: The W-L records shown for starting pitchers are their team's W-L mark when they started games in the 2010 season. Statistical sources for this article were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, ESPN.com and, of course, S-BEE-R-dot-com!
