As we enter the middle part of September there are going to be some fantastic opportunities to make some money in baseball. With all the attention on football (and why not?) there will be some soft lines in baseball to exploit (and why not?). However, one comment we must make here is that after winning four straight months in the baseball (May, June, July, and August), we have suddenly hit a stretch where our night in, night out results have been the type of results that are defying comprehension!

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We need look no further than Friday night September 7th for evidence of why any good handicapper will endure their share of a slump at times. We focus in on this day because the first seven days of September have included a couple days like this and, as such, it bears referencing. On September 7th we had three overs released in the baseball. Through the years our overs in the baseball have been our specialty and this season has been no exception. However, the first week of September indeed has been an exception.

The three overs we had on Friday night were the games in Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Colorado. Here were the situations: the Phillies and the Rockies games were each 5 to 3 games in the top of the 4th inning; the Royals game was a match-up with the Yankees where the teams combined for 27 base runners (18 hits, 7 walks, a hit by pitch, and a batter reaching on a fielder’s choice error). Would you believe out of those 3 situations only one game got over the total? That is exactly what happened as the Phillies and Marlins combined to score just one more run and the Yankees and Royals combined to leave 21 men on base!

The purpose of this article is just to explain that sometimes in the sports handicapping world, hard work is not rewarded in the short term. It eventually gets rewarded in the long term but, in the short term, there are going to be slumps that don’t make a lot of sense. When the ball is not bouncing your way, there will be some results that truly end up defying comprehension.

The key is to work though those rough patches with the understanding that a tough stretch can hit at any given point and can put a short-term end to long-term winning. The best part about it though is that it is just a short bump in a long road of profits and our advice is not to ignore baseball down the stretch run in September. There will be some great opportunities coming up throughout the final weeks of the regular season. As always, best of luck in all of your sports gaming from Scott Rickenbach.