This article is part of our MLB Picks series.
MLB Betting Preview, Predictions, and Previews, Sept. 12
The MLB regular season is ending with roughly 20 games left on the schedule. The National League continues to bring the drama and excitement each day with seven teams competing for the three Wild Card berths. The Atlanta Braves became the first team to clinch at least a playoff berth and are near certainty to win the NL East division crown. They are currently on the road playing the Philadelphia Phillies, who have owned the top wild-card berth, which the winners will then host all three first-round playoff games against the second-place wild card team.
Will the Philadelphia Phillies hang on the top Wild Card Berth?
The Phillies are coming off a split of a doubleheader played Monday and will host the Braves for two more games Tuesday and Wednesday before taking to the road to the play the NL Central last-place St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game series. They will next play the Braves again at Truist Field in Atlanta in a three-game series starting Friday. After that potential peak at a matchup for the NLCS, the Phillies will be playing the last-place New York Mets for six games, with two of them occurring on the last two days of the season and are sandwiched by a three-game series hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates. So, the road to the top wild-card berth is definitely within grasp and I do believe they will host the Chicago Cubs in the first round of the playoffs.
What's Up with Kyle Schwarber?
All season, the Philadelphia media has been mistakenly judged Kyle Schwarber as the worst player possible to be a leadoff hitter. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is the leadoff hitter so that when the lineup gets turned over in the late innings, he has the powerful home-run-hitting bat that comes to plate with runners on base. He has many clutch hits this season that have helped send the Phillies to late-inning wins, tied games to go into extra innings and his value cannot be overstated. Moreover, he has moved his batting average from the low .170s just in July to nearly .200, currently. His batting average matters little as it is his on-base percentage that matters most and throughout baseball on-base-percentage matters monumentally more than batting average or slugging percentage.
Entering tonight's game, Schwarber leads the Phillies and is in second place in MLB having been walked 116 times and few of these have been intentional walks. In fact, he is one of the few players in MLB to ever hit more than 40 home runs and have more walks than hits with the exception being Barry Bonds, who got intentionally walked a record number of times. Schwarber's 0.350 on-base-percentage is above the league average and much better than many other power-hitting players in the league. So, remember, it is on-base-percentage that matters most simply that you cannot score runs if you are not on base.
The Betting Algorithm Supporting the Phillies
This betting algorithm has produced a 37-28 record for 57% winning bets averaging a +147 wager over the past five seasons. The requirements are to be on any underdog using the money line that is batting between 0.255 and 0.270 on the season and has batted 0.240 or lower over their last 10 games. Also, that team is facing an elite starting pitcher on a NL team with an ERA of 3.70 or lower on the season.
The pitching matchup is an outstanding one with the Phillies' Zack Wheeler going up against the Braves' Max Fried and runs should be sparse in this one. The Phillies with Wheeler on the mound are a rare underdog and represent a great opportunity to get the big win tonight.
