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Home - Baseball Betting
2006 Baltimore Orioles Predictions
How is
last year going to play into our 2006 Baltimore Orioles predictions? Despite
a red hot 26-14 start to the 2005 season, the Orioles once again
couldn’t contend with the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox for the AL East
crown as they went just 48-74 the rest of the way out and finished well
behind the leaders of the pack. The Orioles gained many backers in the
early going as they got off to a fast start. The odd thing was that
these initial backers, for the most part, continued to stick with
Baltimore for the remainder of the season, despite the breakdown the
team experienced and as a result, a lot of people lost a lot of money on
the Orange birds. These early bandwagon jumpers, in non bandwagon-like
fashion, stuck with the Orioles and it ended up costing them as they
finished their last 122 games at -31 units. This further emphasizes our
point of handicapping individual games and not teams over the course of
the season.
Bet on baseball using your checking account!
The 2005 Baltimore Orioles are the perfect example of why it is vital to
do your homework. Pay special attention to trends developing as the
season unfolds. Vegas was able to trap plenty of Orioles backers last
season, but if you are able to recognize when a team is in a terrible
slump, you’ll be able to start betting against them at the right time
and you’ll make some nice gains instead of taking huge losses.
The 2006 Orioles have all the makings of a mediocre team. Their pitching
staff isn’t good enough to keep them in games consistently. Last season,
the Orioles were terrible as a home favorite at just 11-18 against
American League ball clubs. Watch to see if a similar trend develops
this season. You may be able to take advantage of road underdogs beating
up on the O’s at home, especially within their division. A lot of these
starters are talented but rough around the edges, maybe Leo Mazzoni will
have the effect that Baltimore fans are hoping for and get this staff
turned around. Daniel Cabrera and Eric Bedard are both guys who could
use some help developing, but Bruce Chen and Rodrigo Lopez have a little
bit of experience and should be able to help guide this young staff.
The bullpen returns to Jorge Julio, who was the team’s go to guy for
three seasons before losing his job to BJ Ryan last year.
In my opinion, Baltimore has a great player in Tejada. His numbers are
incredible but they even suffer slightly as sometimes he tries to do too
much at the plate to help his team win. Javy Lopez is one of the better
catchers in the game and he’ll move to DH this year to make room for
newcomer Ramon Hernandez. Last season Melvin Mora really came through
with 27 home runs, 88 runs batted in and a .283 batting average. Brian
Roberts injuries are a concern for this ball club but if he can regain
his early 2005 form, this team will contend in a very tough division,
maybe the toughest in baseball. But overall, they just don’t have
enough fire power to help out a mediocre pitching unit. Acquisitions
like Kevin Millar just don’t do enough to put a team over the top,
especially one who has to contend with two of baseball’s best
franchises.
This article was written by Jimmy Boyd Pick up his
Baseball Picks here.
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