MLB Baseball Betting – Best Over Bets In 2022 Season

The Major League Baseball season has arrived at the All-Star break. Everyone has some time to reflect on the first half of the season and make some general observations about betting trends and where various teams fit into the bigger picture. It’s not just a matter of wins and losses, but of which teams more regularly go over or under the game totals compared to others. Here are the four most reliable over bets in the sport through the first half. We’ll see if these trajectories change in a meaningful way in the second half.

Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays have the most overs in baseball, at 50 of them compared to 42 unders and 1 push through 93 games in the first half of the season. What’s interesting is that the Jays’ number of overs – 50 – is the same as the amount of games they have won straight up. Obviously, the 50 wins and overs did not occur in the exact same games. The Jays just won a 4-2 game on Sunday which went under the posted total. Nevertheless, they do play more overs than unders, and it’s worth exploring why. In some games, the Toronto offense explodes and naturally carries a game over the number. Blowouts of the Phillies and Royals this past week certainly fit into that category. However, another key reason the Jays play a lot of overs is that their starting rotation has some holes. Jose Berrios has been erratic. Hyun-Jin Ryu got injured earlier in the season, and when he did pitch, he usually got tagged for several runs. Yusei Kikuchi has been a regular over pitcher. He has had a terrible season and has been consistent in only one way: Giving up lots of runs and baserunners in the first four innings of his starts in 2022.

Philadelphia Phillies

The over-under record for the Phillies through 91 games is 46-42-3. The flood of overs comes from two primary sources: The home-run-hitting power of this lineup, especially when Bryce Harper was playing. The Phillies would surely have a lot more overs if Harper had not gotten injured. Even then, however, the home-run hitting of Kyle Schwarber has given the Phils instant offense which carries a lot of their games over the total. The other main reason is the Phillies’ unreliable bullpen, which has turned late-game unders into late-game overs on several occasions in 2022.

Cincinnati Reds

The over-under record for the Reds is 47-40-3. The Reds, a lot like the Phillies, have a terrible bullpen which has cashed a lot of over tickets in the final two to three innings of games. The other reason the Reds have piled up a lot of overs is their recent winning binge. They swept the Tampa Bay Rays and produced some late winning rallies against them. They won a road series in New York in which the over hit on two of three occasions. Over the past weekend, their pitching got hammered and games went over the total twice in St. Louis. The lack of pitching on the Reds, and a tendency to give up a lot of home runs, particularly from Hunter Greene, has carried numerous Cincinnati games over the total this year.

Kansas City Royals

The Royals have a 47-44-1 over-under record. They join the Reds and Phillies in having a bad bullpen. The Royals do not have a great hitting team, which means this particular over-under record is partly the product of a lot of Kansas City games having low posted totals. The Royals’ pitching weakness has caused them to exceed those low totals.