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Reds (6:40PM ET BSOH, BSFL, MLB.TV) – The Orioles had the +1.5 well covered but rally late to win the game outright and give us a third consecutive cash in MLB. We are on a fantastic baseball run out of the break with a three-game win streak on 5% plays as well, I’m on a 6-1 run on 5% MAX BETS and I’ll go for another one here when the Cincinnati Reds take on the Miami Marlins in the third game of a four game set at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

On Monday I tabbed the Reds as deserving favorites and laid the juice with them on their way to an 11-2 thrashing of the Marlins in the opener of this series. Miami bounced back with a 2-1 win last night but I have Cincinnati as deserving favorites yet again and I’m willing to jump back in and back the Reds big here.  I usually use -130 as my “playable” cut off in MLB but we have played a number of plus money dogs in baseball of late so I’m going to make a rare -140 play in a spot I absolutely love.  I make Cincinnati -160 here with Luis Castillo on the mound and I think the Reds could get to a Marlins bullpen that was used extensively over the weekend and hammered in the opener of this series.  The Reds have owned the Marlins in this ballpark the past few seasons and have the 4th highest runs per game tally at home in the majors this year.  Cincinnati has infused some youth into their roster and there’s some young talent here that makes this Reds team undervalued going forward.  Frankie Montas has been excellent in his “auditions” as we approach the trade deadline, that’s Luis Castillo’s main competition and I think that’s a nice motivator for Castillo in what very well could be his final start in a Reds uniform. 

Cincinnati gives the ball to Luis Castillo, that’s been a regular occurrence for the past half decade but this will more than likely be the final time as Castillo is one of the hottest names in the trade market right now.  I don’t put a ton of stock into that, teams are going to trade for Castillo regardless of how he pitches here but I do think Castillo will be motivated to make his final start for the team that took a chance on him a good one.  Castillo has had plenty of good ones of late, the Reds have won the last four times he’s toed the rubber and he has a miniscule 1.00 ERA during that span. Castillo suddenly has more life on his fastball and I expect this pedestrian Marlins lineup to struggle to score runs again here.  Castillo has absolutely dominated the Marlins, in five career starts against Miami he’s 4-0 with a 1.73 ERA against the Fish and it might be tough collectively for the Marlins to focus in this game as virtually their entire roster is on the trading block right now.  Most of the Reds roster knows they are here as part of a rebuild, they have been playing hard for weeks now with solid efforts against teams that are far better than Miami so I fully expect another big effort from the Reds against the Marlins here.

Miami counters with Braxton Garrett, he’s another in a long line of excellent pitchers that have come out of this Marlins farm system of late but I think back to back successful starts against the Pirates have skewed his numbers a bit here. Garrett was dominant against the Pirates (2x) and Nationals but his other four recent starts saw him get knocked around by the Mets (2x), Cardinals and Rockies.  The Reds have absolutely pounded the ball at home this season and I expect them to put together decent at bats against the inexperienced Garrett here. As we saw last night, even if the Reds aren’t scoring they are probably still in this game as the Marlins really haven’t hit at all so far in this series.  Last night was a rare occurrence where the Reds didn’t score at home but somewhat predictable after their 11 run outburst on Monday night.  I expect the Reds bats back at it and a crooked number or two will be more than enough to get the Reds home here.

On top of having the better pitcher and the fact the Reds rake at home the Marlins are likely to be without Garrett Cooper who hit the IL yesterday. This is just a watered down Marlins team right now, the Reds have shown marked improvement the entire month of July and I like them to regain the upper hand in this series with a win here.  Play on Reds -140 for 5% (or 5 units)