MLB Betting Notes From Las Vegas: Don't Count on D'Back's Magic to Continue

By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com

Gibson has his club playing very well

With Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Marlins, the Arizona Diamondbacks are now 13-2 in their last 15 games and 15-3 in their last 18, which begs the question: Are they for real?

Over that three week stretch, Arizona has given us a little bit of everything to do with excellence in baseball from dominant pitching, offensive fire power to great managing in close games.

Manager Kirk Gibson has this young team molded with his own personality stamped all over it, but the type of run we just saw looks to be more about a young team overachieving rather than getting ready for post-season play.

When looking at all the teams they ran into during their run, it wasn’t exactly filled with baseball’s best, but more about catching mediocre teams on a slide. Mixed in with those 13 wins were three each against baseball’s worst, Houston and Minnesota. They won two thrillers against the Braves, caught the Rockies in another offensive slump and also took two from the less than fearsome Dodgers attack.

The strength of their pitching has been their bullpen led by an energized J.J. Putz who leads the National League with 16 saves. He has been lights out when given the lead with no blown saves giving the D’Backs all kinds of confidence in close games. They are 26-0 when leading going into the ninth inning.

Ian Kennedy (6-2) has been brilliant at times this season, but the rest of the rotation has been just kind of getting by. Even Daniel Hudson (6-5), who has been better than most expected this season, has been quite fortunate to win some of his games despite allowing quite a few runs.

While Putz and Kennedy have carried the staff, the Arizona bats have carried the rest of team all season. They currently lead the NL in home runs and it looks like Justin Upton is finally ready to live up to all the potential. But in today’s baseball, you have to have three great starters to compete for a playoff birth and Arizona doesn‘t have that yet.

In this new era of pitching dominating baseball, it will be hard for Arizona to keep up with all the teams that do have the work horses. When they start facing more competitive teams and winning two of three and three of four, then they’ll be a team heading into August that we can make a case for.

As great as 50-to-1 odds on them to win the World Series may sound, it may be better to pass. The only thing they do have going for them is playing in the NL West where the Dodgers and Padres look like they may be pushovers. The division will probably only have one playoff team and right now it looks like the Giants are the team to still beat and we know the Rockies will have one of their mile high runs coming closer to September.

Gas Can
Bobby Jenks was activated from the disabled list Tuesday which probably doesn’t make many Red Sox fans happy because the guy can throw fuel of the fire like maybe only Eric Gagne could in a Boston uniform. Before his one inning stint in garbage time Tuesday -- where he allowed two quick hits, Jenks had been getting tagged all April blowing two save chances and losing two others.

He is the poster board goat for what was wrong with Boston the first month of the season. His fastball is no longer fast, and what’s worse is that he knows it which causes him to throw balls nibbling at the plate, and missing, allowing more runners to get on base. I have a feeling that his stay in Boston won’t be for very long. Nothing can be more demoralizing to a team than a pitcher taking the mound when the players behind him know he won't get the batter out.

Brew Crew
The worst road team in the NL is so good at home that they are only 2.5 games out of first-place. After a seven game losing streak in early May, the Brewers have been playing some great ball. The combination of getting Zack Grienke (4-1) and Corey Hart (5 HR’s) healthy and playing well has been the main reason for the surge. Milwaukee is currently on a 16-5 run and look to have the makings of a team that could contend with anyone because of their staff. Between Grienke, Yovani Gallardo (7-2) and Shaun Marcum (6-2), this team could go far. While they’d love to have a better bullpen, John Axford and Cameron Loe have been a good tandem to close out games. The Brewers are 28-1 when going into the ninth while leading.

The Las Vegas Hilton Super Book has Milwaukee 20-to-1 to win the World Series which shows a great deal of respect for what they’re capable of doing.

Road Warrior
Kevin Correia has been at his best when away from PNC Park this season sporting a 6-1 record with a 2.35 ERA. Amazingly, he’s had a decision in all 11 starts heading into his Wednesday matchup at the Mets going 7-4 overall. His excellence mirrors what the Pirates have done all season on the road where they have one of the highest payout returns in baseball this season at +939.

Bullpen Change For the Better in KC

Aaron Crow takes over the Royals closer role

The Royals hope to shake things up for the better by naming rookie right-hander Aaron Crow their closer after Joakim Soria pitched himself out of the role. Monday’s blown save was the final nail in the coffin for Soria, once considered one of the baseball’s best closers. That gave the Royals nine blown saves in 18 attempts. It didn’t help Soria’s effort to remain the closer that Monday’s loss was Kansas City’s 13th in their last 16 games.

Jeff Francis got the Royals out of their funk Tuesday with a 7-3 win, his second win in his last three starts. The bats helped him out so there was no need for their new closer to make an appearance. This season Crow has been pretty dominant in a set-up role with a 1.33 ERA in 27 innings.

There could be some value in playing the Royals again just because the prices are still going to reflect their rough two week stretch. You know coming into any KC wager that they can hit. They’re currently in the top-10 MLB categories of runs scored (8th), batting average (7th), on base percentage (10th) and slugging percentage (10th). Now they have a closer who hasn’t had his confidence shattered and should be able to finish a few games off right out of the gate.

Best in the League?

Brandon League has been sensational for Seattle

We saw Brandon League go through a nightmarish stretch in the middle of May where he couldn’t close games out. After starting the season perfect with nine straight save conversions, he blew four straight chances taking the loss in each. Since May 18, League has once again been perfect converting his last six chances with not even a glimpse of a team scaring him.

He’s shutting teams down again and makes the Mariners very attractive in almost every game that four of their five starting pitchers take the hill. The exception is Doug Fister, but even that perception may soon change. Seattle has won two of the last three game the big 6’8” right-hander has started.

Tuesday night’s Mariners win was the perfect microcosm of their season thus far. They got great starting pitching from Erik Bedard, but couldn’t get anything going at the plate. However, the great starting pitching kept them within two runs. After some great middle-relief help from their bullpen to maintain the close deficit, Justin Smoak hit a three-run dinger off of Jeremy Guthrie in the bottom of the eighth, his only mistake of the night. Brandon League then took the mound for the ninth, struck out two batters, ball game over.

The Hilton isn’t as impressed by the Mariners as I am. They currently have Seattle 75-to-1 to win the World Series. It's a real long shot, but the pitching staff does have me intrigued.

Ravens Defense Strategy Wins In Baseball?
Who needs hitting when it’s being shown that a decent rotation and a premium stopper can win lots of games in a row and contend for a division title. Seems like the Giants have shown the rest of the small market teams how it’s done, with Seattle and Oakland both looking very similar to San Francisco’s 2010 model.

Teams don’t have to hit well to control games. It’s like the old Ravens defense that everyone tried emulate, but it was their bad offense that helped set the tempo of the games and allowed their strength to be maximized late in close games. It’s no surprise that both the Giants and Mariners, two of the worst hitting teams, have two of the best records in one-run games. It’s almost like that’s how they want it.

Toughest Teams to Go Yard Against
San Francisco’s pitching staff has been the toughest team to hit a home run off of this season allowing only 28 long balls which shouldn’t surprise many, because after all, they are the World Series Champions who relied on that type of stingy pitching to get their rings. But the next two lowest totals come from the American League where Oakland (30 HR’s allowed) and Seattle (33) have a case for being more impressive just because they come from a league with the designated hitter.

Best/Worst Money Teams

If betting every team in baseball all season long, your best earner would be the Indians at +1,704. They have scooped up so much AL money this season that only two other teams show a profit, the Mariners (+334) and Blue Jays (+202). The NL has seven teams with a positive cash flow with Florida (+900) and Arizona (+868) leading the way. The worst two teams to consistently bet on this season have been the Twins (-1,629) and Rockies (-1,374), two teams that have gotten my share of cash flushed this season.

MLB Notes From Las Vegas: Might Be The Best Season Ever!

By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com

Daily walk-off wins make 2011 start awesome!

I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of feeling like this is the greatest start to a baseball season ever. I think I say that every year, but I may actually believe it more this year because of everything that has gone on.

We’ve had dramatics happening daily where every night there seems to be a walk-off win. We’ve got two of the unlikeliest two teams battling early on this week for the AL Central lead and we also have found an NL team that looks capable of playing with the Phillies down the stretch.

We’re just getting into seeing starting pitchers for the fourth time around and I know it’s early, but the more I watch, the more I realize that this truly is the best game on the planet. All the daily storylines, managerial strategy, meaningful statistics and of course wagering with true odds in the gambling world help elevate baseball’s status to the top for me.

AL Central Battle
One, or maybe both of these teams will likely drop considerably by June, but what the Indians and Royals are doing right now is very impressive. The Royals are one game behind the Indians in the AL central division as the two began a four game series in Kansas City Monday. Unless there is a sweep, both have such huge lead already that their positions will still be maintained when it’s over. The White Sox bullpen has let them down almost every other game and are four games back while the two teams most predicted would win the division, Minnesota and Detroit, are mired at the bottom.

Indians bullpen has been terrific 

Cleveland has been getting great pitching, the fifth lowest ERA in baseball, while also getting consistent timely hitting, which ranks third in the AL. The Indians get a boost at the top of the order on Sunday with the return of Grady Sizemore who homered in his first game. They also have gotten a boost from the past by someone who has been MIA the previous three seasons with Travis Hafner. He may not have that menacing rage look anymore, but he’s whacking the ball at a .358 clip with four home runs.

The Royals have the top hitting AL squad with four regular starters hitting .328 or above led by a healthy Alex Gordon and Billy Butler. Their pitching has been almost as impressive with Bruce Chen, Jeff Francis and Luke Hochevar giving quality starts and allowing perhaps the best closer in the game, Joakim Soria, to slam the door shut on opposing teams.

Do I think it will last? Probably not, but it sure is fun seeing these players run out to the field with their fans being truly excited about something for the first time in a years. You can’t help not to root for these teams, regardless of who your favorite teams are.

Johnny Damon Affect

New place, same story with Damon

Since starting the season 0-6, the Rays have stormed back to win six of their last nine and four of those wins can be directly attributed to Damon with the other two helped indirectly because of his the type of winning attitude he brings to a club. Everywhere Damon has gone, his demeanor inside the club house and actions on the field have helped inspire his teams. He was the architect of “The Idiots” at Boston where he helped reverse the curse of the Bambino. His heads up play of taking an extra-base with no one manning third in the ninth inning of game four in the 2009 World Series against the Phillies was the pivotal moment for the Yankees winning their 27th title.

This season the Rays are without the offensive staples of Carl Crawford and their best player, Evan Longoria, who is on the disabled list. They couldn’t get anything going at the plate and then Damon lit the fire against the White Sox and he hasn’t stopped since. In the process, he’s kept all the players on the team loose and helped ease the tension of a young team struggling at the plate. His play has been infectious the last nine games

We don’t think of Johnny Damon as a hall of fame type player, but he’s approaching 2,600 hits and has been involved in some of the greatest baseball moments of the last half century. The argument could be made that Damon’s contribution the game itself far outweighs what mere stats say and entitles him one day for serious consideration into Cooperstown.

Young Pitchers on the Rise
We could just say the entire Rangers starting rotation is one to watch, but the young guns of Matt Harrison (3-0, 0.91 ERA) and Alexi Ogando (2-0, 2.33 ERA) have been the standouts. Ogando hadn’t given up a run in his first two starts and finally gave in to the Yankees Sunday night, but he’s going to be a pitcher you should be able to count on at the bet window.

Harrison has had some success each of the last three seasons, but always had control issues and allowed too many free passes to cross home plate. This year he’s got hitters off balance and he’s throwing more strikes getting ahead in the count.

Gio Gonzalez (2-0, 0.47 ERA) burst onto the scene last season in his third season with the A‘s with 15 wins and a low ERA, but has come out this year as a force allowing only one run in three starts.

West is Best
The AL West has the top three pitching staffs in baseball in regards to team ERA. Oakland (2.59), Anaheim (2.68) and Texas (2.95) have been baffling teams nightly with their starting pitching and all three are winning at a pace of .500 or above. The Rangers and Angels came into Monday’s game in a tie for first place and the Rangers should consider themselves quite fortunate that they don’t have to face both in their three-game series.

Wednesday’s game will feature the Rangers Harrison against Weaver in the matchup of the day. Weaver has the looks of a Cy Young award winner with four wins in four starts, 31 K’s in 27 innings and an ERA of 1.30. Haren will miss the series; lucky for Rangers, because he’s on the best run of his career starting out with four wins and an ERA of 1.16. In 31 innings, Haren has allowed only two walks and has been nearly un-hittable.

Twins struggle
Nothing has gone right for the Twins this season. Outside of Francisco Liriano, their starting pitching has been very good and kept them in ball games, but their two leaders haven’t been getting it done and so manager Ron Gardenhire did something about it.

Joe Nathan missed all of last season due to elbow surgery. He came back strong early this season getting three saves in three chances, but then blew save opportunities two chances in a row over the weekend against Tampa Bay forcing the team to make journeyman Matt Capps the closer.

Their all-star catcher Joe Mauer was put on the disabled list because of dead legs and no one seems to know what the cause of it is even after seeing a couple different specialists. He’s lost almost 20 pounds during the process. Mauer had only eight hits in his nine games played for a .235 batting average, well below his career average of .326.

The Mauer and Nathan issues are only part of the problem that has seen the Twins drop to last in the AL Central. Only Denard Span and Jason Kubel have been hitting consistent with the likes of Michael Cuddyer, Justin Morneau and Denard Span all getting failing grades thus far.

Mile High Madness

Tulo early MVP candidate

The Colorado Rockies have traditionally been slow starters opting to make their amazing runs for the playoffs in August and September, but this year they have come out of the gate strong and have baseball’s best record. Every night there seems to be a new hero. Troy Tulowitzki is looking like the early leader for MVP and the popular MVP pre-season choice, Carlos Gonzalez, hasn’t even started hitting like he's capable of. The straw that has stirred the drink the most, outside of Tulowitzki, has been 2B Jonathan Herrera who seems to be on base every other inning. Herrera is batting. 400 with an on-base percentage of .543.

So far the starting pitching has held up and on Tuesday they get a lift when Ubaldo Jimenez come off the DL and takes the mound against the Giants. Their bullpen has been outstanding in both short and middle relief.

If Tulowitzki can stay healthy all year, the Phillies definitely will have their hands full come playoff time. By the way, the Phillies and Rockies don’t meet until a short two game series mid-May. The Rockies get a nice chance to pad their record along the way with eight games against the Giants, three each against the Cubs, Marlins, Diamondbacks, Mets, Padres and Pirates before facing Philadelphia.

Las Vegas Betting Notes: Masters Takes Center Stage in Sports Books This Weekend

By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com

Mickelson and Woods are favorites to win The Masters

With the NCAA Tournament coming to a close, it signals another season of change for Las Vegas sports books. Betting patterns are altered by the customers and vacation requests by book employees are more easily accepted by book managers across the city. April begins a lull in traffic through the sports books that gets progressively worse all the way to August when the NFL pre-season starts, and even that is up in the air now with a possible strike.

Horse Racing picks up some steam as we near the triple crown, but that doesn’t appeal to many of the traditional sports bettors like it did just a short decade ago. The telling sign that that season has changed, without knowing what month it is or what sport has stopped, is to simply look at a typical Saturday morning in any Las Vegas sports book from September through March and compare it with what we’ll see this Saturday. It’s dead, quiet and there will be minimal windows open for betting.

The busiest day for the sports books now becomes Sunday morning from 9 am to 11 am as bettors all gather to bet their early baseball and NBA games.

It’s kind of surprising that more bettors -- the type that rush to the books for their four-team parlays in the NFL -- don’t bet baseball more just because it’s the best value for the player against the house odds. Not only does the player get the edge of playing a .10 cent line -- less at some places, but they get true payouts on parlays as opposed to fixed odds from a chart for basketball and football odds that decrease with each additional leg added to a parlay when using a true .20 cent payout formula.

Because of the true odds payouts in baseball, Sports Book Directors will be walking on egg-shells for the next four months just hoping to make some kind of profit until football starts and avoid the losing month that inevitably happens quite often during baseball seasons.

In addition to all the great MLB, NBA and NHL action going on this weekend, we also get a chance to wager on the most bet upon golf event of the year, The Masters. Beyond all the history of Augusta National that makes it so popular, handle for the sports books is spurred because most books have had the odds offered since last December allowing the millions of visitors to the city since then a chance to take home a few souvenir tickets for friends, family or themselves.

The Las Vegas Hilton Super Book offers, by far, the most extensive weekly wagering menu on all golf tournaments. The architect of all the creative odds and propositions in Assistant Manager Jeff Sherman who will offer over 40 golfer match-ups with another 40 props this week. Sherman also plans to do match-ups for each round as well as offer updated odds after each round has completed.

Phil Mickelson is the 13-to-2 favorite after winning the Shell Houston Open last week with Tiger Woods next at 10-to-1. After that, Sherman doesn’t have anyone else lower than 15-to-1.

“I think this is as wide open as it’s ever been,“ said Sherman. “It’s kind of like the NCAA tournament we just saw where it wouldn’t be surprising to see to see anyone up to the 40-to-1 range win it.”

Woods has won The Masters four times and has 14 grand slam wins, but none since 2008 and fell to No. 7 in the world rankings. However, Sherman says despite all the woes with his golf swing, there is much respect.

“He’s still Tiger, but these are the longest odds I can ever remember posting on him. Part of that is because of his troubles on the courses, but most of it comes because there are just so many good golfers out there capable of winning. There is parity like never before.“

Golfers Sherman likes to do well this week include Dustin Johnson (20/1), Nick Watney (15/1) and Matt Kuchar (25/1).

Baseball and NBA Saves Sports Books Saturday
The two most bet upon games of last weekend were the Final Four games, but without the NBA and baseball helping, it would have been a losing day for most. The combination of favored Butler winning and covering and 2-point underdog Connecticut winning outright was a bad one for the house in both straight bets and parlays. Keeping the parlay risk to a minimal 13-to-5 majority payout was helped by the Connecticut game staying under the total. However, the Sharps had bet that game under from the opening number of 141 ½ to a closing number of 138 ½.

NBA Notes

Lowry and Rockets are red-hot

There are only five to six games remaining for most NBA teams as some scramble to make the post-season while others try to maneuver for playoff position. Out west, the Hornets and Grizzlies are tied at 44-33 and hold the No. 7 and 8 spots, but only three games out are the red hot Houston Rockets with Kyle Lowery and Kevin Martin leading the way going 8-2 in their last 10 games. On Wednesday they’ll have a chance to help their own cause with a game at New Orleans. In their other four remaining games, only Dallas has a winning record.

Meanwhile, the Hornets have a tough road ahead with games against Phoenix, Memphis, Utah and Dallas. The Grizzlies have somewhat of easy road in their games. In addition to the Hornets, Memphis will face the Clippers twice, Sacramento and Portland. No odds are offered on the possibilities of making the playoffs in Las Vegas sports books, but if they did, I would take some Houston action with hopes that the Hornets tank it. To supplement that wishful action, I’ll just take Houston Wednesday night at New Orleans.

The Lakers took a major blow to their hopes of gaining the No. 1 seed out west when they lost to Denver on Sunday ending their nine game winning streak. The Spurs had been in a six game free-fall until beating Phoenix on Sunday and maintain a 2 ½ game lead over the Lakers.

The most interesting playoff matchup out west looks to be No. 4 and 5 seed with Oklahoma City and Denver. The Thunder have shown that they can beat just about anyone this season but have lost two in a row, including one to the Clippers. The Nuggets have gone a tear since hi-jacking the Knicks and dumping Carmelo Anthony. The loss of Chauncey Billups was initially thought to hurt the Nuggets more, but the combination of Ty Lawson and Raymond Felton running a two-headed point guard -- on the court at the same time -- has been tough for all teams they have faced.

Since the deal with New York, the Nuggets have gone 14-5 and have nearly secured the No. 5 slot. They may miss the star treatment of Carmelo from the officials in the playoffs, but they have so many scoring options now with not having to run everything through one player.

The Bulls and Heat are playing their best ball of the season in the East while the Celtics have sputtered. The trade that sent Kendrick Perkins away may have backfired on GM Danny Ainge. His hopes of bringing in a quicker Jeff Green to be their James Posey-type of player while waiting for their twin O’Neal towers to return inside and elevate their game hasn’t happened yet. Shaquille O’Neal returned to action over the weekend for five minutes only to have his calf break down, something that can’t be promising since it could be stemming from his achilles problem.


Baseball Notes

Britton shined in MLB debut Sunday vs. Rays

The Rays played like one of the best teams in baseball last season with great defense, getting good pitching and timely hitting. This season, they find themselves only being able to muster one run a game in their first three chances of the season against Baltimore and got swept at home. Compounding matters for Tampa Bay is that their best player, Evan Longoria, just went on the 15 day disabled list.

Whether it’s a matter of good pitching by Baltimore or bad hitting by the Rays, Buck Showalter’s staff came out and made a statement for the rest of the AL East to take notice of. A pitcher that could make big difference this year is Zach Britton who made his major league debut Sunday throwing six strong innings allowing only one run off of three hits. Britton had a terrific spring but was supposed to start the season in triple-A until Brian Matusz was placed on the disabled list.

Despite having a lineup full of free swingers like Mark Reynolds, J.J. Hardy, Derek Lee and Adam Jones, they have quite a nucleus of really good hitting players that stack up well against most lineups in baseball. Should Brian Roberts and Vladimir Guerrero be able to stay healthy, this could be a great season for the Baltimore faithful and definitely worth taking a shot with at 40-to-1 to win the American League and 80-to-1 to win the World Series.

While the O’s soar, the Red Sox slid miserably going 0-3 for the weekend at Texas where the potent lineup of Boston couldn’t get anything going against Texas pitching. Meanwhile, the Rangers hitters put on a show belting 11 home runs in the three games outscoring Boston 26-11. For the Red Sox, it's their worst start since 1996 when they started the season 0-5.

Through the first weekend of baseball games we had six games with favorites of minus-200 or above and only the Phillies were able to win, doing so in all three of their games against the Astros. The other three games saw the underdogs win outright with the Padres beating Chris Carpenter and the Cardinals opening day, then on Saturday the Diamondbacks beat the Rockies and the Orioles took down Tampa Bay.

A team better than the Phillies to bet OVER the total in each game this year may be the Cincinnati Reds. With Philadelphia, you have their tough staff to worry about ruining your bet, even though the Phillies can score runs in bunches. With Cincinnati, they have a stacked lineup with only a few good pitchers that should lead to quite a few games going OVER. Drew Stubbs at the top of the order for the Reds has the makings of being a Carlos Gonzalez type and thus far has not disappointed.

It was nice to see Felix Hernandez and Jaime Garcia go the distance and get complete games over the weekend. Even though their pitch counts were barely over 100, it’s rare to see pitchers -- who are coddled so much because of the team‘s investment in them -- go the distance this early in the year.

The pitching performance that stood out the most, beyond the Orioles Britton, was Toronto’s Kyle Drabek who pitched seven innings of one hit ball with seven K’s in their win Saturday over the Twins. We’ve been hearing the name for the last two years as a great prospect for Philadelphia, not only because he’s the son of former Pirates Cy Young award winner Doug Drabek, but because he has great stuff. It’s easy to see why the Phillies were so reluctant to deal him even if it meant not getting Roy Halladay.

UNLV Head Coach David Rice

We should have an official announcement by Wednesday where former UNLV player David Rice will be announced as UNLV’s new head basketball coach. The match should be a perfect fit of mixing the old with the new for UNLV, accentuating on all the positives. With Rice, The Rebels will get back to runnin’ and gunnin’ like the old days while also maintaining the integrity and stability to the program that Lon Kruger brought. It’s a win-win for everyone, especially for the fans in Las Vegas.

Phillies Powerful Rotation Has Prompted Vegas Sports Books To Offer Props

By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com

Phils Fab Four has prompted Las Vegas Sports Books to offer props 

When Cliff Lee signed with the Philadelphia Phillies this off-season, the immediate reaction by most in the baseball world was that the Phillies would cruise through the National League East and valet park at the World Series.

On paper, the addition of Lee to an already impressive staff of reigning Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt has swayed the public perception dramatically. In the process, the media have done their share to stir the pot by comparing the new rotation with the all-time greats in baseball history.

In Las Vegas, everyone has an opinion, but unlike other cities, you can actually put your money where your mouth is. The Las Vegas Hilton Super Book and Lucky’s sports books have offered a wide array of baseball propositions for the upcoming season that can have even the smartest of know-it-alls slow their talk when it comes to actually taking dollar bills out of their wallets.

Over at Lucky’s, they posted the season win totals for each team allowing bettors to bet over or under the number. Because of the media hype and public opinion, not to mention a pretty good ball club, the Phillies are listed with the highest total of 97.5 wins. Last season the Phillies went 97-65 and claimed the best record in baseball. Surely, with the addition of Lee, -- even with the departure of Jayson Werth -- Philadelphia can top that number, right?

When looking at the schedule, it’s easy to see why the Phillies season wins are so high even though they have won the NL East four straight years. When glancing at the bulk of their schedule against teams in their division, no where on Lucky’s list of teams is there a greater top-heavy disparity between the expected first-place team and second-place in any division. The Braves are the closest with 87 ½ wins, followed by the Marlins at 82 ½, Mets at 77 ½ and the Nationals at 72.

The Phillies also get the benefit of playing nine of their inter-league games against the worst competitive division, the AL West, with three games each against the Rangers, Mariners and Athletics.

The pitcher best in baseball!

The most interesting proposition of all came from the Hilton where they have put up a number on how many wins the “Philly Fab Four” rotation would win between them. In my discussion with Assistant Manager Jeff Sherman, I told him to wait before he told me the number so I could blindly guess. Off the top of my head, I just shot out 70 just because I had this vision of the 1971 Orioles with four studs each winning 20 or more games. Sherman said my guess was way too high.

I then go through the numbers of each pitcher and come up with 22 wins from Halladay, 15 by Oswalt, 14 for Lee and 13 for Hamels, giving my adjusted guess with some actual thought making my total 64 wins. I’m thinking I have to be right on the money with that one. Lee and Hamel’s total appear to be low from the public perception rationale, but Sherman informed me I was too high again.

“Try 59 ½ wins,” Sherman excitedly said as he stumped me multiple times on my guesses.

So we started to talk more about it -- analyzing the number a bit -- and he started off by saying that he has Halladay posted at 17 ½ wins which would then take me to their number if I agreed, which I still don't.

“The real equalizer to the prop is injuries which are sure to occur and none of those starting four have been immune to it over their careers, “ Sherman explained.

“If we just look at last year with 96 wins and combined both of Oswalt and Lee’s wins with their other clubs, you’re still only looking at 58 wins and that’s with Halladay having a career year.”

Even more logic can be gathered to support the Hilton’s proper number. For all the greatness we’ve seen out of Cliff Lee in the playoffs, let’s not forget that he has only won 26 wins combined in the last two regular seasons while playing for four different teams. Oswalt was a terrific acquisition for the stretch run last year going 7-1, but he still had 13 combined losses on the year and is now going into his 11th season.

Drysdale & Koufax: 49 wins in 1965

If looking at some of the greatest pitching staffs of all-time, like most recently the 1995 Braves, they had only 54 combined wins. Going back to the 1971 Orioles, they had a four man rotation and combined for 81 wins. Same goes for the rotation of the 1965 Dodgers who got 71 wins from their top four led by Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Claude Osteen each starting 40 or more games.

Last season Halladay was the workhorse with 33 starts while Lee made only 28 starts between Seattle and Texas.

“When we put the number up on Tuesday, we immediately got bet over the number, said Sherman. We moved the money a little bit, shading the over, but we’re still sitting at 59 ½.”

When looking at history and understanding the Hilton’s injury aspect a little more, I would have a tough time betting over 59 ½ wins. In today’s baseball world, high priced pitchers just don’t make starts with sore arms anymore. They did it all the time just two decades ago, but it’s too costly for the long term investment of the team, player and player-agent to allow it now.

Having said all that, I would have a tough time betting under 97 ½ wins and much of that precaution stems from their winning attitude year after year, along with their weak divisional foes who they’ll play the most. I’ll go with the Phillies to finish 99-63 on the year with the “Philly Fab Four” accumulating 57 wins between them. I'll also take Halladay to go 20-10 on the season just because I see his work ethic and dedictaion to both diet and fitness keeping him rolling through the season, stronger than most.