It has been said that hitting a baseball is one of the hardest things to do in sports, and that is why pitching is so important to the handicapping process. A great starting pitcher or even a great bullpen can shut down a team entirely and turn what should have been an exciting game into a 1-0 strikeout duel. However, in baseball there are more than just moneyline, runline and totals bets—many times half the handicapping battle is deciding on the right wagers to make. Let’s take a closer look at two interesting MLB in-game wagers that can be an excellent opportunity for bettors to make some money off of the sportsbooks—runs, hits and errors and the first fiving innings wagers.
Runs, Hits and Errors—is a bet that can be made on every MLB game and is essentially a totals wager that combines the runs, hits and errors into an ‘over/under’ for gamblers to bet on. The runs, hits and errors lines are typically set between 20 and 30 and generally lie in the 26 to 28 range.
A runs, hits and errors line should be looked at in conjunction with the over/under line on the entire game. The wager can be used as a sort of security blanket on your totals bets. For example if you wanted to wager on an under that was particularly low, say six runs, you could wager on the runs, hits and errors as well, just to give yourself some wiggle room if the game goes over. A game with a six run total will usually have a runs, hits and errors line of 21 or 22, and the game could go over the total and still say under the runs, hits and errors with a box score that looks something like, 7 runs, 13 hits and 0 errors. However, the opposite can happen as well—a game might stay under its total but register a lot of hits that do not turn into runs.
First Five Innings
Sometimes we cannot wait a full three-hours for a game to end and our bets to be decided. Sometimes we need a quick bet with a fast outcome—and the first fiving innings wager is great for that. Essentially, a first fiving inning bet is exactly what it sounds like. The oddsmakers will set lines on the first five innings of a game and your wager is decided once the sixth inning starts. There will usually be a moneyline, a spread, and over/under for every first five inning wager.
The best way to use a first five innings wagers is when you have great starting pitching and a bad bullpen or vice versa. If you have a team with great starting pitchers then the game will probably be low scoring at the beginning and high scoring once the pitchers are relieved. Handicapping is the key to this wager and knowing how your team performs in certain situations is the best way to take advantage of a first five innings wager.