Three and Outs: Vegas Handicap Maker Has Solid Strategy for Betting on Baseball

LAS VEGAS — Nationals pitcher MacKenzie Gore didn’t pitch well when he started against Chris Sale in Atlanta on Aug. 23, with the Braves winning seven of their previous 10 games.

Tom Barton, in his Long Island home lab, had detected a left-handed angle that prompted him to bet under 2.5 runs on the three-inning total of that game.

Braves outfielder Michael Harris II hit a solo home run off Gore, the only run in the first three innings. Atlanta won 3-2 in 10 innings.

Barton was lying in wait. Gore, a 6-3 lefty, had performed well in his previous six starts against the Braves. That put Barton in the position of three innings under the total, at -125 (or risking $125, say, to win $100), a vital part of his baseball portfolio.

He didn’t trust the Nationals to play the game, nor did he care about the costly -270 on Sterling Sale. Barton had bet on those three innings in action.

“Gore has had a tough time over the last month and a half, but he’s smothering Atlanta,” Barton said. “Atlanta can’t do anything about him. They just can’t hit him. I didn’t care if Atlanta was in a good situation or if Gore had a tough time. All I cared about was the Braves playing him because he’s a lefty.”

Atlanta had hit .259 against left-handed pitchers at home and .244 against Gore.

“I love it when a team hasn’t seen a true lefty in a while and then they get a guy who has his number,” Barton said, “and that was MacKenzie Gore. The Braves hadn’t seen a really tough lefty in eight or nine days.

“During these first three rounds, they will have an adaptation period.”

THE BEGINNING

During his sophomore season in 2017, Blake Snell showed flashes of greatness, enough to make his name stand out. In 2018, he had brilliant stretches of eight and 11 games.

That’s when Barton, a veteran bettor who runs a handicapping service, started seeing three-round totals on his Empire State sports betting apps.

“Coincident with the demise of the starter’s ace world,” he said. “I used to love betting the top five under. But wait a minute. We have the top three totals?”

The three-run bet, which often came down to three points, became a favorite tactic.

“At first, wow! Their price wasn’t exactly right,” Barton said. “It was juicy! Beautiful. It takes four to lose? At first, they had to do trial and error. They threw everything at the wall and saw what stuck.”

“They rounded up (by 2.5), which was bad. A mistake, but it’s wonderful to me.”

Snell, now with the Giants, against the Mariners’ George Kirby in Seattle on Aug. 24, demonstrated Barton’s acumen over three innings.

On the surface, two good starters, as evidenced by the low total of just 6.5 games, 3.5 per five innings, 1.5 per three. Snell had thrown a no-hitter three weeks earlier.

“But I don’t like Kirby,” Barton told me the morning of that game. “He’s given up two or more runs in his last four starts. And two games ago, Snell gave up three runs. Can Snell give up two? Yeah. That’s normal.”

“Well, Kirby doesn’t look very good. Can he give up two? Yes. That’s four points. You lose the first five, lose the first three and you might lose the game. I don’t want to get anywhere near that.”

The Giants scored a single run in the first and second innings, the Mariners scored two in the second. San Francisco won 4-3.

Just as Barton had imagined.

THE TURNOVER

I had been discussing the nuances of the three-inning bet with Barton for a month when I decided to do it to get out of a spiral of not cashing maybe 24 or 25 consecutive baseball bets.

Some stupid combination bets, a few misses on the running line, a complete inability to assess the total of a match. As a small fish, these defeats did not hurt my wallet. I would never bet money that I would miss. My pride, on the other hand, had been destroyed.

On the Saturday of the Snell-Kirby game, the Mets’ David Peterson faced the Padres’ Michael King in San Diego. In the previous three games, the two pitchers had a combined ERA of 4.12, 2.29 in five innings and 1.37 in three innings.

I appreciate basic mathematical models and determined that minus 2.5 at -145, for those three rounds, gave me a value of more than one point (2.5 minus 1.37).

In Las Vegas, Station Casinos began offering three-inning options last season. In Illinois, DraftKings offers run totals on three, five and seven innings and the game. After three innings, the Mets led 1-0.

Barton begins a season with a list of likely three-under-par candidates and gradually expands it.

Today it includes Gerrit Cole (Yankees), Zach Wheeler (Phillies), Tarik Skubal (Tigers), Bryan Woo (Mariners), Reynaldo Lopez (Braves), Tanner Bibee (Guardians), Jake Irvin (Nationals) and Mitchell Parker (Nationals).

The first, Barton implored, is a solid minus-2.5 factor over three innings. He sees many bettors overlook it when a manager uses a reliever to start, but it’s effective. The Rays have started that maneuver.

“The manager is playing exactly the strategy we want,” Barton said, “he’s playing to keep them down for the first two or three innings. That’s our advantage. I want to be on the manager’s side. We don’t have the resources that a manager has, so why not follow what he’s already decided? That’s a huge advantage that people overlook.”