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Take Pirates’ MLB Odds vs Banged Up Reds

Written by on May 5, 2015

MLB News and Betting Previews| Xbet.ag
It may still be very early in the season, but there are a couple of divisions where the leaders are starting to open up a pretty solid lead. One of those is the NL Central, where the St. Louis Cardinals are starting to quickly pull away from the pack. Winning division games becomes huge in situations like this, which is why the Pittsburgh Pirates –the MLB odds favorites– will be looking to take out the Cincinnati Reds in a 3-game home series that begins on Tuesday night.

Pittsburgh vs Cincinnati: MLB Odds Analysis and Game Preview

Date: Tuesday, May 05, 2015 Time: 7:05PM Venue: PNC Park Opening Line: Pittsburgh -139 The Pirates (12-13) are now 6.5 games back of the division leading Cardinals after being swept by St. Louis over the weekend. The Pirates looked as though they were ready to get back into things after putting together a 5-game winning streak towards the end of April, but they followed that up by losing 5 of their next 6 games. The way in which Pittsburgh lost to the Cardinals, three straight extra innings defeats, was bad enough, but they are now looking at their start player hitting under .200 for the season. There is some concern that Andrew McCutchen may not be as healthy as the Pirates would have you believe, and you wonder just how long they will let him go before sitting him down for a few. Jeff Locke (2-1, 4.76 ERA) will get the start for the Pirates on Tuesday. Locke was solid through his first three starts of the season, but was hit hard in his last outing versus the Cubs. pirates-reds-mlb-odds Cincinnati (12-13) will be looking for a repeat of the previous series with the Pirates. That came at the very start of the season, and ended with the Reds getting the sweep. Cincinnati has been unable to find any sort of consistency since that opening series, and are now in some serious injury trouble, the most serious of which sees Homer Bailey set to undergo Tommy John surgery. The Reds do not have a particularly deep squad, so they can ill afford to continue sending guys to the treatment table. Cincinnati is in the midst of a 10-game road trip, which they started with a series split in Atlanta. They will head to Chicago to face the White Sox after they complete the series with the Pirates. Michael Lorenzen (0-1, 5.40 ERA) will get his second start of the season on Tuesday night. Lorenzen was hit hard by the Brewers in his first start, and will need to improve if he wants to get his first W of the season.

Key Betting Trends

Pittsburgh is 1-5 SU in its last 6 games The total has gone UNDER in 7 of Pittsburgh’s last 9 games Pittsburgh is 5-2 SU in its last 7 games at home Pittsburgh is 0-5 SU in its last 5 games when playing Cincinnati The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Pittsburgh’s last 9 games when playing Cincinnati Cincinnati is 8-17 SU in its last 25 games on the road The total has gone UNDER in 7 of Cincinnati’s last 10 games on the road Cincinnati is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games when playing Pittsburgh The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Cincinnati’s last 9 games when playing Pittsburgh Cincinnati is 6-3 SU in its last 9 games when playing on the road against Pittsburgh

What Should You Bet On?

If Lorenzen struggles like he did in his first outing of the year, the Pirates may well be able to break out of their hitting slump. Either way, I think this is one that Pittsburgh can win over the banged up Reds.   Sources ESPN.com (http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/_/id/31068/jeff-locke) MLB.com (http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=547179)
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