Over 9 Yankees:
If I was capping this game a few years back, I'd have probably been on the Under. Both pitchers have pretty good ERA's over their last few starts. However, this is now, and I'm thinking this game has 'OVER' written all over it.
First of all, these 2 teams are 2 of the better teams at hitting left-handers.
Arizona is hitting .289 for the season and .301 over their last 10 games vs lefties.
NY is hitting .286 for the season and .326 over their last 10 games vs lefties.
They also put up some runs vs the southpaws:
Arizona is averaging 5.1 Runs per game vs lefties(4.5 on the road)
NY is averaging 5.2 runs per game vs lefties (5.7 at home)
Now if you take a look at the above it adds up to over a full run higher than what this total is set at. But what's even more interesting is the fact that this game has a good shot in my opinion to go well over their averages for the season. The reason being the pitchers and the home umpire in this one.
The Home Ump in this game is Bruce Froemming. Froemming has been known to have a smaller than average strikezone. If you look at the average total of runs per game with Froemming behind the plate over the past several years, you'll see that every year it's higher than the number today:
1998.......averaged 10.17 runs/game with Froemming
1999......averaged 9.3 runs/game
2000......averaged 10.89 runs/game
2001........averaged 10.37 runs/game
2002........averaging 8.6 runs/game
If you're saying to yourself that this season he's got a larger zone, I would beg to differ. He's only got 15 games in this season, and if you break down the games that went 'under' most of those involved struggling offenses and other 'under' circumstances. Froemming still has a tighter than average zone.
Brian Anderson is the pitcher for the D'Backs today and wouldn't be surprised if he got rocked for some runs.
For those of you that don't know, Anderson is a pitcher that just refuses to walk people. He does not believe in free passes. He would rather 'groove' a pitch than walk a batter. This would explain the 2 games that he pitched in the past when Froemming was the home Ump. In those 2 games, Anderson pitched 11.1 innings and got rocked for 9 earned runs on 19 hits while walking just 2 and only striking out 2.
A lot of times refusing to walk someone and letting them hit the ball is not a good sign for the 'Over' bettor, but this is an exception. Anderson has given up a ton of home runs over his career because of his approach and with Froemming behind the plate today, he might be 'grooving' pitches all game long to Yankee batters which I expect NY to take full advantage of. The Yankees have an unbelievable major league leading 101 home runs on the season. This is 38 more than rest of the AL average of 63!!
Anderson is situational pitching is pretty bad as well....again the guy trys letting the hitter make the out instead of making quality pitches. He's paying the price for this. Check the numbers:
Anderson with runners on.....batters hitting .375
Anderson with runners in scoring pos....batters hitting .360
Anderson with runners in scoring pos and 2 out....hitting .333
David Wells is pitching for the Yanks today and I feel much of the above may apply with Wells as well today. Wells is similiar to Anderson in that he doesn't like to give to many free passes. I do think Wells is the better pitcher, but may run into the same problems.
Wells has never pitched with Froemming behind the plate, but the results I feel could be bad for him as well. The Yanks lead their league in homers, but what's interesting is the fact that Arizona leads their league in Home runs. This coupled with the fact that Arizona also leads the league in walks, it makes for a very potent combination with this pitching and umpire pairings.
Also an interesting note, is Wells may not be 100%. He's been having back soreness the past month and this could only hurt his performance as well if the problem is existing. Remember last season, he missed time with all the back problems.
One more note....can only help with the 'over' in this one knowing Rivera is on the DL.
Definately think this game has a good shot going well over the total considering the situations in this one, but if you can grab the line at 9, it's definately smarter.
GL :thumb:
