I got a pretty good response last week after highlighting day-night splits in Major League Baseball. I don’t think bettors give this type of information enough consideration even though it is readily available on VSiN.com and in Point Spread Weekly. Simply, foundational reasons help explain why certain teams perform better in these varying situations. Another split that shows up in our MLB team reports each week is performances against left-handed and right-handed starting pitching.
The foundation for why a team performs better against left- or right-handed pitchers is fairly basic. In most cases, it’s simply having more batters on the opposite side, who see the ball better and succeed accordingly. If a team is stacked with mostly right-handed hitters, it likely will have more success against left-handed starters, and vice versa. While some luck and coincidence is involved, teams’ lefty-righty splits have enough merit that bettors should give these numbers consideration day in and day out.
Here are four teams that have shown drastically different performance levels against left-handed and right-handed starters in 2021. Numbers are through Wednesday’s games and can be tracked daily on the matchup pages on VSiN.com.
New York Mets
vs. RH: 28-16, O-U: 21-21, RF/RA: 4.2/3.2
vs. LH: 7-9, O-U: 6-10, RF/RA: 2.9/4.2
The Mets’ lineup has been ravaged by injuries, yet the Amazin’s lead the NL East on the back of their pitching staff. That said, the Mets are putting up respectable offensive numbers against right-handed pitching this season, at least compared with how they fare against lefties. Versus right-handers, they were scoring 4.2 runs per game, and with the great pitching to back it up had gone 28-16 for 8.94 units of profit to date. The offensive production vs. lefties had been 1.3 RPG worse. For the upcoming week, the schedule is very busy, with eight games in the next six days. The only expected left-handed opposing starters in that span figure to be Jon Lester and Patrick Corbin of Washington over the weekend. It could be a lucrative week for Mets backers.
New York Yankees
vs. RH: 25-20, O-U: 18-27, RF/RA: 4.0/3.6
vs. LH: 10-12, O-U: 10-12, RF/RA: 3.6/4.7
In looking at the Yankees’ lineup, the splits versus left-handed and right-handed pitching are quite strange. If any of these splits has a chance to turn quickly, I would say it would be New York’s sluggish performance against lefties. With Gary Sanchez, Gio Urshela, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, the Bronx Bombers clearly have potent right-handed bats capable of clobbering left-handers. It just hasn’t worked out that way yet, as they were scoring just 3.6 runs per game in that scenario while going 10-12 for an ugly -8.58 units. That ROI shows that the Yankees have been favored big in many games and a lot has been expected. I’d be leery of following these numbers in the coming weeks, regardless of how the schedule sets up.
Philadelphia Phillies
vs. RH: 24-19, O-U: 19-24, RF/RA: 4.3/3.8
vs. LH: 9-14, O-U: 12-10, RF/RA: 3.9/5.2
Three of the main players in Philadelphia’s lineup — Bryce Harper, Didi Gregorius and Odubel Herrera — hit left-handed, though all have spent time on the injured list this year. And the Phillies have been better against right-handed pitching. Besides, right-handed hitters Jean Segura and J.T. Realmuto also are ranked in the top 14 in MLB in batting average against righties, so it’s not always the obvious things that play out. Philly has gotten on a bit of a roll lately and looks to continue that on a West Coast trip. The Phils figure to face Giants southpaw Alex Wood on Friday. The rest of the weekend’s games will likely be against right-handed pitching.
St. Louis Cardinals
vs. RH: 25-29, O-U: 26-24, RF/RA: 4.0/4.8
vs. LH: 10-4, O-U: 6-8, RF/RA: 4.4/3.3
St. Louis entered Thursday with three wins in a row after a 2-11 slide, which was fueled by poor performances against right-handed pitching. They were just 25-29 against righties in 2021, but 10-4 against lefties. However, that latter record represents a very low 20.5 percent of games, not a big enough number to provide benefit in the standings. As much as the Braves series looks difficult, perhaps this is the weekend the Cards get it turned around as they are scheduled to face three straight lefties — Max Fried, Drew Smyly and Tucker Davidson — in that series, followed by another, Tarik Skubal, on Tuesday in Detroit.