The Reds and Phillies open up a 4 game set tonight at Citizen's Bank Park in Philadelphia and Game 1 should be a beauty. The Phillies send their Ace to the mound in Cole Hamels, who of late hasn't looked like the World Series MVP that he was. Cole has struggled in his last two outings going less than 5 innings each start allowing 7 Earned Runs in his last start and 4 Earned Runs the start before that. However, Cole has had a lot of success against the Reds and this should be a good spot for him to bounce back. Hamels is 4-0 against the Reds in his career with a 1.25 ERA and a 0.944 WHIP. The Under is 4-0 in Hamels last 4 starts against the Reds. Hamels should put together a strong performance tonight and then leave up to his bullpen who for the most part looks like they pulled things back together. Chan Ho Park has been outstanding out of the pen, and Brad Lidge looks like his old self in his last couple of saves.
The Reds counter with Johnny Cueto who has had a very good year so far. Cueto is 8-4 with a 2.69 ERA on the year. In his last 10 starts, Cueto has allowed 3 Earned Runs or less in 7 of those starts. In his most recent start, he went 6 innings allowing only 1 hit. Cueto has only had one career start against the Phillies in which he went 7 innings and allowed 4 Earned Runs. I expect Cueto to keep a still struggling Phillies line-up in check.
Jimmy Rollins looks to have gotten his swing back after being benched but that still hasn't turned into a huge amount of runs for the team. In their 2-0 win yesterday, they only had 3 hits but thankfully for them two of them were home runs. They won another low scoring affair Saturday against the Mets and I expect a similar result today. And if history repeats itself we will cash an easy winner. The Under is 7-1 in the last 8 meetings between these two teams, and 4-0 in the last 4 meetings in Philadelphia. Play the Reds/Phillies to finish UNDER the posted total!
Chris James 7/6
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