Stinking up the Joint – MLB’s Coldest Teams This Week

For every team that’s hot in Major League Baseball, there have got to be teams that just are not. This week’s theme is teams that have started off red hot but have cooled off back into the teams that sports betting gurus expected at the beginning of the season. Here’s this week’s edition of Who’s Not presented by BetOnline Sportsbook…

(Rank) (Team) (SU Record, $$$) (SU Record, $$$ L/5)

1: Kansas City Royals (18-16, +$386) (0-5, -$517 in L/5) If you had told any Kansas City Royals fan that their team would be percentage points behind first place in the AL Central standings and still be over .500 at May 14th, they’d take that in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, for a team that was just really starting to believe that it could compete, a five-game losing streak has put a damper on the celebration. Both SPs Zack Greinke and Brian Bannister were handed their first losses of the season this week. Neither had a bad outing (the duo combined to give up three runs over 13.2 IPs), but the offense only combined for three runs in those two starts. The bottom line for Greinke is that his arm may be good enough to win a Cy Young, but that arm can’t carry the weight of the entire club. The Royals need to start to limit his innings, as he’s on a clip right now to throw 265 innings this year.

2: San Diego Padres (13-21, -$605) (0-5, -$502 in L/5) Baseball bettors are going to get awfully nice numbers on the Pads for the rest of the season, but there is a harsh reality that will plague San Diego bettors all season: When your team is this bad, five-game losing streaks happen. That’s where the Pads are right now after getting outscored 32-15 over their L/5 games. The team’s offense was never looking good this season, but it’s just inexcusable at this point in May to still be batting just .240 as a team. A 4.87 team ERA isn’t going to help the issue either, especially playing in what is historically one of the lowest scoring ballparks in the game.

3: Arizona Diamondbacks (13-22, -$1,151) (1-4, -$419 in L/5) Pop quiz, hot shot! What Diamondbacks pitcher leads the team in money earned? Brandon Webb? Nope. Dan Haren? Surely not. Doug Davis? Don’t think so. The answer is Jon Garland, who is the only starter on the staff with more than two starts to have a winning record for baseball bettors (5-2, +$365). In fact, there are only seven pitchers in the majors with a worse money record than Haren, who is 3-5 but down $437 on the season. For a squad that is 13-22, there sure are a lot of instances in which they are laying -170. No wonder this is the worst money team in baseball. It’s also no wonder that Manager Bob Melvin has been fired.

And the rest…

4: St. Louis Cardinals (20-14, +$384) (1-4, -$315 in L/5)

5: Seattle Mariners (16-18, -$272) (1-4, -$300 in L/5)