3 early sports betting trends for the Phillies

This article was contributed by BetMGM. For more sports betting insights, check outBetMGM.com.

Not even 15% of the MLB regular season has been played, but several sports betting trends have emerged, including some for the Phillies.

Here are three trends for Phillies over/unders, bets on scoring runs in the first inning and the run line:

There have been 158 pitchers who have made at least 15 regular-season starts since the beginning of the 2022 season. Bailey Falter ranks first in win rate for the under.

The Phillies’ under has hit in 15 of Falter’s 20 starts (67.7 percent) over the last two years -- 9-3 on the road and 6-2 at home. And in many starts, it hasn’t been close; in eight of the 15 games in which the under hit, it did so by at least two runs, including four games by at least three runs.

If you bet $100 on the under in each of those 20 starts, you’d be up $862 for a return on investment of 43 percent. Only Miami’s Braxton Garrett has a higher ROI in at least 15 starts (49 percent) since 2022.

The Phillies averaged 0.49 first-inning runs during the 2022 regular season, tied for 12th in the league and way down from a league-leading 0.82 in 2020.

Nearly four weeks into 2023, they’re at 0.79 and have been one of the best YRFI (yes runs in the first inning) teams in sports betting.

YRFI bets are 15-8 in Phillies’ games, partly because they’ve scored at least one first-inning run in 46 percent of their road games (six of 13), tied for the fourth-best rate in the league.

Their YRFI win rate of 65 percent is currently 20 percentage points higher than their final 2022 YRFI win rate of 45 percent.

The Phillies are 3-0 in one-run nine-inning home games this season:

• April 8: Won 3-2 vs. the Reds
• April 21: Won 4-3 vs. the Rockies
• April 22: Won 4-3 vs. the Rockies

In each game, they were a run-line favorite at -1.5, meaning they won each game against the moneyline but lost against the spread (ATS).

While all ATS losses are graded the same (i.e., as a lost bet), all ATS losses are not equally built. In the Phillies’ case, they lead MLB in one-run wins as the favorite; with a currently small sample size of three full weeks of sports betting thus far this season, that makes them 9-14 against the spread (.391) instead of 12-11 (.522).

All MLB teams suffer many one-run losses as a home favorite each season. But it's very unlikely a team suffers 24 of them, which is the Phillies’ current pace of 30 percent of all home games.