Here’s what I love about baseball; teams face each other in sort of a mini-series tournament worked into a full season schedule. Did you get that? Let me try again. Baseball seems to be the only sport where each game is part of a mini-playoff type format where they need to win their series to have a sense of short-term accomplishment. How about that?

If I’m a player, I like the fact each games means something in the short term, and taking the “tournament” approach to each series brings out the competitiveness in many players.

One thing about football, basketball and hockey, you have back-to-back games, but not in a “series” type format, but there is meaning to each game. Football is a bit different, due to the fact you only have 16 games during a NFL season, so a 0-3 or 0-5 losing streak can knock you out of the playoffs and take away your competitive drive for the rest of the year. However, when handicapping baseball, it’s one of the best sports to crunch numbers, because of the 162 games season each team has to play, and it gives number crunchers everywhere more data to play with.

One of the toughest part of handicapping is trying to predict when a team will get off it’s winning or losing streak and I’ve gone through the 2007 baseball season series from day 1 to June 6th and broke down how teams do in game 1 to 4 of a baseball series. If there’s one thing that stood out, it’s when a game “meant something” like a rubber match or the 1st game of a series, underdog pitchers seem to tighten it up and pitch better to give their team the edge, as I found betting the “UNDER” is probably the best advantage when betting in those situations.

Here’s a chart on how teams did in each situation regarding game 1, 2, 3 and 4 of a series.

When teams play in Game 1 of a series:

• Home Favorites: 128-108 SU and 117-107-10
• Home Underdogs: 22-27 SU and 13-31-5
• Road Favorites: 27-22 SU and 12-31-5
• Road Underdogs: 108-128 SU and 117-107-10

When teams lose 1st 2-games of a series:

• HF: 17-17 SU and 19-14-1
• HD: 6-8 SU and 8-5-1
• RF: 7-5 SU and 6-6
• RD: 25-25 SU and 23-24-4

When teams win 1st 2-games of a series:

• HF: 25-25 SU and 23-24-4
• HD: 5-7 SU and 6-6-0
• RF: 8-6 SU and 8-5-1
• RD: 17-17 SU and 19-14-1

When teams split 1st 2-games of a series:

• HF: 66-39 SU and 50-50-5
• HD: 12-20 SU and 10-22-0
• RF: 20-12 SU and 10-22-0
• RD: 39-66 SU and 50-50-5

When teams lose 1st 3-games of a series:

• HF: 0-0 and 0-0-0
• HD: 1-1 and 1-1-0
• RF: 1-0 and 0-1-0
• RD: 0-3 SU and 1-2-0

When teams win 1st 3-game of a series:

• HF: 3-0 SU and 1-2-0
• HD: 0-1 SU and 0-1-0
• RF: 1-1 SU and 1-1-0
• RD: 0-0 SU and 0-0-0

As you can see and one thing I’ve noticed from handicapping sports, the favorites will always get their wins, you just need to know when to pull the trigger on those underdogs, as you can see from the 1st game of a series, if you bet on all those “home underdogs” and the “UNDER”, you would have made a nice profit! Plus, it fits in my rule of thumb for those who want to bet the side and total; if you bet the faves, bet the OVER and if you like the dogs, bet the UNDER.

Good luck with your bets.