Welcome to a quick preview and betting strategy for Game 3 of the ALCS. It’s been a fun few days of viewing the ALCS and NLCS, unfortunately a rather stagnant few day in terms of betting but you can’t win all the time and we have been doing a pretty good job of the 2017 postseason so far. Lets continue that trend in what looks to be a cracking game 3 in New York.
Tuesday 17th
American League Championship Series
New York Yankees vs Houston Astros (11.10am AEST)
Yankees ($1.76) – Sabathia (14-5, 3.69 ERA)
Astros ($2.10) – Morton (14-7, 3.62 ERA)
Astros lead series 2-0
The Yankees return home down 0-2 in the series and will be happy to get into their own dugout. A 51-30 home record, its where they do their damage. Due some runs they will need the struggling Judge and Sanchez to step up and produce in order to keep the series going. The Astros will at least be aiming to win one of the next 2 in order to keep the upper hand on the series and their road performances in 2017 suggest they have every chance to do so. 53-18 away from Minute Maid Park, a road performance is all about them bats.
For the Yankees it will be the veteran arm in CC Sabathia. A 4.20 home ERA, and .244 BAA, he will be hoping to get through 5 innings with little damage. That’s likely to be the mission statement as then the Yankees solid pen can take over. The Astros have had a remarkable turnaround in strikeouts this season and tend to work the count a lot better. CC’s stuff on 2-0 and 3-0 counts isn’t great and this is where I see the weakness in the matchups. Astros 2 through to 5 hitters, Reddick to Bregman have great discipline and I expect them to work CC early.
For the Astros it will be former Pirate (sigh) Charlie Morton, who has had a career season. Yet his performances on the road have not been that sharp. 4-4 with 4.17 ERA. Usually a ground ball style pitcher he has been inducing for fly balls of late. A career .327 BAA against this line up over 113 at bats is also an important note to take away.
Considering there has been a total of 6 runs over the two games this series, I’m of the mindset that something has to give. With both of these powerful batting lineups and some starters who show all signs of giving up runs here I’m really liking the over on the total run line. A decent lead by the Yankees would probably lead the Astros to save their better relievers for another day. A decent lead by the Astros would cause the Yankees to be more aggressive. Having the last 2 games be so low scoring has dropped what would be a higher line I believe so im just ticking every box at this point as I look at the Over 8.5 total runs. If you prefer a money line bet I think the price on the Astros is pretty good. For novelty punters $6.00 for Reddick to hit a home run is nice as is the $4.50 on Todd Frazier who knows Morton all too well from his days with the Red.
Suggested Bet – Total Runs o8.5 at $1.85 (1u)
All Prices Quoted via Crown Bet at time of writing.
Hopefully your thoughts on the games match up with mine. As always these are only a select few games I was interested in, feel free to share your opinions on any games at @MLB_TheProfits on Twitter. Happy Punting.
