If you are like most bettors you watch or at least follow most of your action. It’s been my experience that when you are paying close attention to a baseball game you have a pretty good handle on how the two teams involved are performing. That can be especially beneficial information to act on as it happens.
There was a classic example recently when the Twins and Rays were playing a fifteen inning game. Both teams used their entire bullpen, which is always a dead giveaway that they’d probably better get a quality start the following night. The Rays even went so far as to use the next games’s starter for an inning. When that happened, people lined up to fade the Rays in Texas the following night.
However, Texas was in a bad situation having to travel back from Canada, and without an underwhelming bullpen of their own. And yet, the Rangers went from -115 all the way to -150. So, there’s two problems there. First, an over reaction to the Rays, and secondly if you DID like the Rangers you wasted .35 by waiting overnight.
As it turned out the Rays actually won the following night, so the over reaction was just that, and a typical windfall for the sportsbooks since most people paid the steep price.
In fact, if people had thought it through the “over” was a smart bet. We knew the Rays had not bullpen, and we know the Rangers’ pen had been in bad form. The Rays had been hitting, and the Rangers were getting Beltre back. The Rays AND Rangers both had starters that were not likely to pitch more than six innings on a good day, and of course Arlington is a great over venue. The final score ended up being 10-7, easily eclipsing whatever number any book had up.
The point is that most of this should have been at least a viable option the night before the game was played, especially if you were paying any attention to the scoreboard. If you’re going to watch and follow games, often times that is by far the best way to handicap. The “eye test” is one that is rarely wrong, and yet people don’t utilize it as often as the could.
The next time you’re watching a game, think beyond the wager on that game and into the next one. I assure you that with that information you will win more wagers, and at the very least get into some sort of routine, which is also in the arsenal of every professional bettor/handicapper.
