Couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd throw some notes up on a few of these.
Pittsburgh +165 and Under 8.5 +100:
First of all these 2 teams have a pretty good history of low scoring affairs, especially this season. So far of the 16 meetings this year, 12 have gone Under the total. Of the 9 games that were played at Houston....7 have gone Under.
Both teams really don't hit right-handed pitching really well. Pittsburgh is hitting just .242 vs righties for the season, while Houston is hitting just .256 for the season vs righties.
Another reason I like Pitt and the Under is the fact of what they are hitting over the last 10 games vs righties.
Over the last 10 games, Pitt is actually hitting .262 vs righties which is not good, but is still 20 points over their season average.
Over the last 10 games, Houston is hitting for a poor .223 average vs righties which is over 30 points lower than their season average.
Wells usually bounces back very strong after a loss. So far this season, he is 7-2 following a loss with 2 no decisions. This could easily be 8-1 as he pitched well enough last start, but did not get any run support.
Wells faced Houston twice this season, and although he got rocked last time out, he did pitch very well in Houston which leads me to a big key in this one:
Wells is from the Houston area. He graduated in 1995 from Elkins High School in Missouri City which is only about 30 minutes from Houston. Expect Wells to be very focused in this game like his last game in Houston as he will probably have many family and friends their.
Wells Performs very well in pressure situations. He is allowing a very respectable low overall average of .248 to hitters this season and when the pressure is on, he's even better:
Wells with runners on.....allowing just a .227 average to batters.
Wells with runners in scoring postion...allowing just a .239 aver.
Wells with runners is scor. pos and 2 out...allowing just a .220 average to batters.
Wells also seems to fit well with Home Plate Umpire Lance Barksdale. He pitched one game in the past with Barksdale as the Ump and pitched very well going 7 innings, only allowing 6 hits while walking none and striking out 4. He did allow 3 runs which came off 2 "mistake" home run balls. I've seen Barksdale Ump several games this season and he seems like the Ump which will give the low strike call more often which fits perfectly with Wells as he needs to keep the ball down to be most effective.
Miller should pitch a good game as well. His only start vs the Pirates this season was a winning one, going 6 innings, allowing just 1 run, but last season he was just 1-2 vs the Pirates even though he had a nice ERA of 2.70 vs them.
Don't think the Pirates will get too many runs off him today, but they might be able to get enough to win...especially if Wells pitches how I expect him to today.
There are a few Pirates that have had some success vs Miller. Some career numbers:
Kendall .429
Ramirez .333
Reece .333
Rios .750
Wilson .273
Young .250
Likewise, there are some that have struggled such as Giles (0-8)
Bottom line, i think the game has a good shot to stay Under the total and think the Pirates have a good shot to take this one if it develops into a low scroring affair. We'll see.
Good luck :thumb:
-ndnfan
27 earned runs 
