Hot Road Dogs – Philadelphia Phillies at New York Mets

BetOnline MLB betting odds: Mets -140, Phillies +120, Total 10

Jamie Moyer (3-1, 5.65 ERA), the grizzled veteran southpaw, goes to the mound for the Phillies tonight, while the Mets are going with Michael Pelfrey, who has yet to taste defeat this season (3-0, 6.00 ERA).

Here are some of the MLB Baseball betting trends as they relate to this matchup:

* PHIL has won eight of its last 11 games

* PHIL has won five of its last six road games

* NY has won four of its last five games

* NY has played seven of its last nine home games UNDER the total

In the HEAD-TO-HEAD sports betting trends:

* PHIL has won 10 of the last 16 meetings as the road team

* NY has won four of the last six meetings as the home team

* Four of the last five meetings in New York have gone UNDER the total

Wednesday night’s game brought brilliant pitching performances by both Johan Santana and Chan Ho Park, but Santana was just a little better, holding the Phillies scoreless through seven innings on two hits, and the Mets won a 1-0 decision. That broke a three-game winning streak for Philadelphia.

The Phillies started slow, winning four of their first ten games, but they have picked up some steam of late, climbing over the .500 level and recently taking a lead in the NL East. The Mets are 1.5 games behind them at the moment. They lead the National League in runs scored with slightly over six a game, but it is going to once again take some work from their pitching staff to reach the winners circle come October. They got great service out of Jamie Moyer last year and they will look for it again in 2009. Moyer, who is still pitching at age 46, performed like he was going after the 300-win plateau last season, compiling a 16-7 mark for the Phills, his highest win total since 2003. The two-time 20-game winner has 249 career victories.

Moyer just pitched against the Mets this past Saturday, and allowed five runs in 5-2/3 innings. That was nothing special for sure, but fortunately for him, Oliver Perez was even worse for New York, he even walked Moyer to force in a run at one point. Perez has since been jettisoned from the rotation and sent to the bullpen. If you’re looking for encouragement here, Moyer did silence the Met bats last September 7, as he pitched two-hit shutout ball over seven innings.

Michael Pelfrey has not completed six innings yet, and his first two starts were very mediocre. There was a decent effort on April 25 against Washington, when he gave up two runs in 5-2/3 innings, and his performance against the Phillies last Friday, when he gave up three runs over five and a third, was good enough for the Mets to win. Pelfrey is fortunate in that he has gotten good run support from his teammates, who have scored 24 runs in his three winning efforts. Pelfrey, however, is not nearly as good as his 3-0 record would indicate. For example, he has walked 13 batters in 21 innings and struck out only six.

For us, this is all about taking advantage of the underdog price with a pitcher who is better. Pelfrey’s strikeout-to-walk rate is horrible, and as mentioned, he has been much less reliable than a 3-0 record would ever seem to indicate. We like the Phillies, the +120 dog in the BetOnline National League baseball sports betting odds.

JAY’S PLAY: PHILADELPHIA (+120) ***

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)