How To Bet Sunday Nights Dodgers-Mets MLB Matchup

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[h=1]How to bet Sunday night's Dodgers-Mets matchup[/h]MLB Vegas ExpertsESPN Chalk
ESPN INSIDER

For the third straight week, ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball brings viewers a taste of the National League, and in the process it showcases the 2015 NL pennant winners for the first time this season.
The New York Mets enter Sunday in first place in the NL East, but thanks to the fireworks surrounding Saturday's contest, most everyone's focus is on the events of the last 24 hours.Noah Syndergaard's fastball behind Chase Utley may have been intended as a message, but Utley ended up doing what he's been doing for more than a decade: delivering a crushing blow to Mets fans, this time with his 37th and 38th career home runs against the club, easily the most he's hit against any other team.
If recent history is any indication, the Los Angeles Dodgers may not need a pair of home runs tonight, as one run is frequently all that's needed to get a win withClayton Kershaw on the mound. He's making his sixth start this month, and in the first five he's recorded more shutouts (3) than walked batters (2). Facing off against Bartolo Colon in the rubber game of this series, Kershaw takes the mound looking for a sixth straight win.
Here at Chalk, we have one of our own riding a five-game winning streak. Joe Peta (5-1, +4.48 units) looks for his sixth straight win in this space and dives into probability theory to support tonight's play, while Andrew Lange (1-4, -3.28 units) explains how the Kershaw-Colon matchup makes this game a tough one to bet.
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Westgate line: Los Angeles Dodgers (Kershaw) -198 @ New York Mets (Colon) +179
Over/under: 6 (-115)
PickCenter Intel

Joe Peta: When the Dodgers have taken the mound this year behind Kershaw, it has presented baseball bettors with an interesting exercise in probabilities. Last Monday, in Kershaw's previous start, Los Angeles went off as a -410 favorite at the Westgate (Chalk's source for MLB odds) and it had me fiddling with my spreadsheets to see if I could justify any team priced as an 80-plus percent favorite. It led to a couple of questions: Would the record-setting, 116-win Mariners have had an 80 percent win probability versus the 100-loss Devil Rays in 2001? Would a team with an average offense win 80 percent of its games if it allowed exactly two runs every game?"
That second question is relevant, because Kershaw has done something I don't believe any other pitcher has done since I started following baseball: Over his last 700-plus innings, Kershaw has convincingly established himself as, at worse, a 2.00 ERA pitcher. That is simply astounding and it forces a model-based analyst to examine certain assumptions. For one thing, with an ERA so low, Kershaw is the only pitcher whose median runs allowed each game is not materially lower than his average runs allowed. (Because the fewest amount of runs allowed for any pitcher is zero-bound, every pitcher's average runs allowed is higher than his median runs allowed, but it's virtually impossible for any pitcher to maintain a sub-2.00 ERA and have single game results which would raise the average significantly higher than the median.) There's some assumptions and theory involved, but here's my conclusion: From an odds standpoint, Kershaw and the Dodgers are overrated and it sets up tonight's play.
Consider this: Earlier this month, the Dodgers hosted the Mets with this same starting pitching matchup. That night, Kershaw went off as a -260 favorite, an implied win expectancy of 72.2 percent. Tonight, at -198, the implied win expectancy is 66.4 percent, and that 5.8 percent drop in win expectancy isn't nearly enough to account for the difference in home fields. This sets up one of those situations where I heartily endorse making a bet I fully expect to lose. If that seems odd to recreational sports bettors, think of it like this: If someone hands you a pair of dice and offers you 10-1 odds to roll a seven in one roll, you would not expect to win the bet, but you'd accept the bet because it has value in the form of positive win expectancy. Let's go Mets!
ESPN Chalk pick: New York Mets +179

Andrew Lange: Over the past two seasons, Kershaw has been one of the most dominant starting pitchers in baseball. But because of his elite status, profits have been hard to come by. Dating back to the start of 2015, the Dodgers are 29-14 when Kershaw toes the rubber. If you were to make a $100 bet on those 43 games, you'd be up less than $100. Betting on him often requires risk ranging from 2-1 to as high as 3.5-1. On the other hand, betting against him requires the need to stomach an average of slightly more than one earned run allowed per start.
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</article>I'm not actively looking to support 43-year old Colon even though he continues to defy logic. Consider this: Colon's FIP over the last five seasons has ranged between 3.23 and 3.84. The consistency is not only uncanny but on par with a lot of starters who command a ton of respect in the betting markets. Eventually, Colon's sinking fastball ways will come to an end. But pounding the strike zone in the National League continues to be a recipe for success.
While betting on -200 or more road favorites may appear like a risky proposition, recent history shows it's the right side. Since 2010, betting that profile has yielded nearly +23 units of profit. And important to note, laying the -1.5 run/line -- which a lot of recreational bettors are prone to do -- during that span returned only +4 units. Each game requires its own handicapping, but defaulting to laying 1.5 runs via the run-line on the logic that the moneyline price is "too high" is exactly what the bookmakers want. In the end, you won't make much money over the long term by betting the best starting pitchers in baseball, but I don't see an edge either way in this matchup. This is a perfect contest to sit back and look for an opportunity to make an in-game wager.
ESPN Chalk pick: Pass
 

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