Sunday MLB Best Bet: Red Sox vs. Yankees

Written by Jake Thompson
Sunday, 15 May 2011 21:10

The Sunday MLB best bet will be between the Red Sox and Yankees.

We finally lost a game yesterday after a lengthy winning streak, and we’ll try to get back on the profitable side of things with our Sunday MLB best bet between the Boston Red Sox (19-20) and the New York Yankees (20-17). The Red Sox have won 4 of the 5 head-to-head meetings against the Yankees this year and that is why online sportsbooks have made Boston the small betting favorite despite being on the road for this 8:05 PM ET game.  Close to 70% of tracked MLB bettors are taking Boston and we’ll do our best to let you know if they are the correct bet as we handicap this exciting American League East matchup.

The Red Sox are going with left-hander Jon Lester (4-1, 1.22 WHIP, 2.96 ERA) for this one and the Yankees have struggled to hit him lately.  Lester has won his last 3 starts and New York has a combined 10 hits and 2 earned runs over 20.1 innings during this hot streak.  The Yankees are hitting just .247 on the season and .240 over their last 10 games, so reversing the recent trend of offensive failure against Lester seems unlikely.

New York will go with right-hander Freddy Garcia (2-2, 1.32 WHIP, 2.61 ERA) and the veteran starter has been one of the most surprising stories of the year after many had written him off after a long career.  The Red Sox took a while to get hot offensively but they’ve swatted .279 over their last 10 games and are finally getting solid contributions from their lineup.  Garcia has won 2 of his 3 starts against the Red Sox since 2009, and he’s allowed 16 hits and 6 earned runs over his 19.1 innings.

Although Boston has been playing good baseball lately, there are still some concerns with the club.  First off, their bullpen has a 4.40 ERA on the season and has been unreliable at key times during the season.  Second, first baseman Kevin Youkilis (.240, 6 HRs, 22 RBIs) is listed as questionable with a sore hip.  The Yankees are healthy for the most part and it’s only a matter of time before this star-studded lineup starts to score runs and hit for a higher average.

With all that being said, the bet here has to be on Boston because of their pitching and offensive edges.  Lester is a starter that goes deep into games and that should help clean up much of the potential for a bullpen letdown.  New York just isn’t seeing the ball well and their big sluggers don’t seem to be in mid-season form yet.  It’ll turn around before too long, but for now I can’t count on them to score runs against a pitcher as good as Lester.

Red Sox 5

Yankees 2