{"id":16509,"date":"2011-07-19T03:35:15","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T08:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16509"},"modified":"2011-07-19T03:35:15","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T08:35:15","slug":"reds-face-pirates-in-game-2-of-a-3-game-pittsburgh-homestand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/reds-face-pirates-in-game-2-of-a-3-game-pittsburgh-homestand-16509\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds Face Pirates in Game 2 of a 3 Game Pittsburgh Homestand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Reds (47-49) AT Pittsburgh Pirates (50-44)<\/strong>
\nJuly 19, 2011 at 7:05 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 CIN -126, PIT +106<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0\u00a0 CIN -125, PIT +105<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 8<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0\u00a0 8.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP: CIN- Mike Leake; PIT- James McDonald<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
James McDonald has a 4.42 ERA this season<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By all means, this season was a surprise for the Pittsburgh Pirates.\u00a0 They haven’t reached these heights since the late 80s\/early 90s when Barry Bonds was a Pirate.\u00a0 The Pirates had +10,000 odds of winning the NL Central this season, after finishing 57-105 in 2010.<\/p>\n

I had this to say about the Pirates in my season preview<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Evidenced by their ridiculous odds, the Pirates offer no betting prospects as anything other than another last place finish in the NL Central seems inevitable.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s human to be wrong from time to time, and I certainly was there.\u00a0 It’s rare, however, when a small market team like Pittsburgh manages to gather an appropriate of home grown talent to be competitive.\u00a0 There was a lot of optimism when they brought in Clint Hurdle to manage the team, and they did and do have a host of young talented players.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh will be seeking their sixth straight victory over the Reds tonight for the first time since 1991 when they had a 9 game run.\u00a0 The Pirates lead the season series over the Reds 6-1.\u00a0 Not bad considering that the Reds were the favorite with +180 odds of winning the NL Central.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pirates have had our number all year, man,\u201d Reds 2B Brandon Phillips resigned himself. \u201cI don\u2019t know what it is, but I\u2019ll tell you one thing: They\u2019re a good team, they\u2019re for real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neil Walker and Chase d’Arnaud have been particularly impressive for the Pirates.\u00a0 Walker has a 12 game hitting streak, a span over which he his hitting .460 with 10 RBIs.<\/p>\n

The Reds are going to send Mike Leake to the mound.\u00a0 Leake is 8-4 with a 4.28 ERA this season, and is the only Reds’ pitcher with a victory over the Pirates this season.\u00a0 Leake gave up 2 runs over 6 innings in a win on April 16th, to improve to 1-1 with a 2.13 ERA in his 4 career starts against the Pirates.\u00a0 He’s 3-0 with a 2.13 over his last 4 road starts.\u00a0 Leake is only 23 years old, and was not expected to be this good this quick.<\/p>\n

He showed his promise by entering straight into the majors and never playing at the minor league level.\u00a0 Last season, he compiled a 4.23 ERA, and this year has been very similar.\u00a0 His WHIP last season was 1.50 and this season it is down to a much more respectable 1.20<\/p>\n

James McDonald pitch for the Pirates.\u00a0 He is 5-4 with a 4.42 ERA this season and will be facing the Reds for the third time in 2011.\u00a0 In his first two outings, he gave up 7 runs over 4 1\/3rds and 1 run over 6 2\/3rds innings, with the first start a loss and the second a win.\u00a0 Brandon Phillips has hit 4 of 6 in his career against McDonald, whose ERA over his last 6 starts has been in the mid threes (3.41).<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the Reds’ last 5 games and it has gone OVER in 5 of their last 7 on the road.\u00a0 The Reds are 1-4 SU in their last 5 games on the road and they are 0-5 SU in their last 5 games against the Pirates.\u00a0 The Reds are 5-2 SU in their last 7 on the road against the Pirates.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER In 6 of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ last 8 games and the Pirates are 4-1 SU in their last 5 games.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 4 of their last 5 at home and the Pirates are 9-3 SU in their last 12 home games.\u00a0 The Pirates are 5-0 SU in their last 5 against the Cincinnati Reds, and they are 2-5 SU in their last 7 against the Reds at home.<\/p>\n

Mike Leake does give the Reds an advantage.\u00a0 He’s been a true prodigy since he was drafted and should be able to give the Pirates some tough pitches to drive.\u00a0 He’s considered a “ground ball machine” by some and he is actually a good hitter too with a .289 TAv, second among pitchers with at least 60 plate appearances.\u00a0 So a Moneyline on the Reds seems prudent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Reds (47-49) AT Pittsburgh Pirates (50-44) July 19, 2011 at 7:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 CIN -126, PIT +106 Current Line:\u00a0\u00a0 CIN -125, PIT +105 Opening Total: 8 Current Total:\u00a0\u00a0 8.5 SP: CIN- Mike Leake; PIT- James McDonald By all means, this season was a surprise for the Pittsburgh Pirates.\u00a0 They haven’t reached these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":15548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[78,428],"class_list":["post-16509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16509"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16511,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16509\/revisions\/16511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}