Betting First Five Inning Odds

Written by Jack Jones - Google +

Oh how the game of baseball has changed. We used to see guys like Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton pitch 300-plus innings in a season back in their prime. Ferguson Jenkins was another starter in that category, and he pitched 325 innings with 39 starts and 30 complete games back in 1971. That comes out to an average of more than eight innings per outing. If a starter were to reach 250 innings in a season these days or pitched even 10 complete games, it would be considered a work overload. With how much money these guys make, it’s more important to keep them healthy than it used to be. What I’m getting at is that bettors of today are faced with much more difficult tasks in trying to determine the outcome of a game.

Starting Pitchers

To successfully handicap a baseball game, you now must not only determine the worth of a starting pitcher, but also the bullpen that precedes it. Odds makers who set the lines for these games have a harder time doing their job as well just because of the way the game is played now. That means there is a lot of value to be had. There’s nothing more frustrating than wagering on a team who’s starting pitcher just dominated as you expected, only to see the bullpen blow up in the late innings to cost you a victory. For those of you who would like to narrow it down to handicapping starting pitchers, they have introduced MLB first five innings odds.

Five innings wagering means that you only have to predict which team will be leading after the first five innings. Both starting pitchers are automatically listed in a first half or first five innings bet. So if one of those starters is scratched, then your bet is returned as no action. You can list which starters you want to protect yourself on a money line bet for the outcome of the entire game. There is no listing pitchers in first five innings wagers. Another difference between wagering on the entire game and the first five innings is that a contest can obviously be tied after five innings. In this case, your bet will be returned as no action as well.

Lineup Strength

The average pitcher faces around 4.25 batters per inning, so if you carry that math over to the first five innings of the game you’ll see that everyone in the lineup gets to bat twice, and the top 3-4 hitters will get a third at bat. If you can handicap which team has more of a top-heavy lineup, that team should have an advantage over their opponent.

This is similar to betting on sports like basketball and football where there are first half lines and halftime lines. There can be a lot of strategy that goes into predicting how a team will come out to start a game and how they will play after halftime in those sports. Really, the only strategy to use in baseball when it comes to first five innings lines is determining which team has the better starting pitcher. That being said, certain starters tend to be dominant early and fall apart in the later innings, while others are slow starters who get stronger as the game goes on. Make sure that if you are going to place these types of wagers during the season that you check into these areas. Find out what a starter’s ERA is in each of the first five innings throughout their career which can be found if you dig deep enough.

Finding the Right Book

Considering some books don’t carry five inning odds it is much harder to shop around and find good value. So if the five inning line is close to the money line, then you may just be better off predicting the winner of the game. Only play the first five innings if you are certain your advantage is due to starting pitching. If you are basing your wager on backing a team because they have a stronger batting order, then it wouldn’t make much sense to bet the first five innings. Teams with stronger lineups tend to have the advantage with the more at-bats they receive, thus taking them for the full game would be the move here.

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