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Phillies’ climb into wild-card race sparks more action at sportsbooks

A week ago, the Phillies were 25-1 at Caesars to reach the World Series. But then the Emperor took a $5,000 bet and the odds dipped to 16-1.

Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto had no play on the Mets' Travis Jankowski, who scored a run during an 8-7 New York win on May 5.
Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto had no play on the Mets' Travis Jankowski, who scored a run during an 8-7 New York win on May 5.Read moreSTEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer
    by Ed Barkowitz, For The Inquirer
    Published 

The Phillies will spend the next two weekends playing the Mets. It’ll be an interesting couple of series, starting Friday in New York. Shame Keith Hernandez doesn’t have any action on it. Maybe that would make him interested.

The Mets announcer’s silly comments aside, the Phillies’ run of 13 wins in 15 games before Thursday’s loss put them squarely in the wild-card race. They’re unlikely to catch the Mets for the division title; New York entered Thursday 10 games ahead of the Phils, but the two teams will play seven head-to-head games in the next 10 days. The Phillies, though, could be without their best slugger.

A week ago, the Phillies were 25-1 at Caesars to represent the National League in the World Series. But then the Emperor took a $5,000 bet and the odds dipped to 16-1.

» READ MORE: Phillies getting to work on tweaking Noah Syndergaard’s pitch arsenal

“There has absolutely been more daily action on them,” Eric Biggio, lead baseball trader for Caesars, said Thursday morning. “People love riding the streaks in MLB. Philly has beaten up the bad teams recently, but the general public will become believers if they keep it going against the Mets over the weekend.”

Tom Gable, head of the sportsbook at the Borgata in Atlantic City, needs the Mets to hold off the Phillies and the Braves and win the NL East for the first time since 2015. New York leads second-place Atlanta by seven games.

“Believe it or not, the Mets winning the division will be a great result for us,” Gable said. “We took a ton of Phillies money before the season started and then some big money came in on the Braves toward the end of the first half of the season, so we are in good shape with the Mets winning the East.”

Friday starts a hefty run for the Mets as their next 13 games are against the Phillies, Braves, and Yankees. Max Scherzer will make his fourth start of the season against the Phils, and the first since he gave up 10 hits in six innings in a 3-2 loss on May 8. The line was Mets -160 that day at Citizens Bank Park as the Phillies countered with Kyle Gibson. On Friday, the Phillies are the visitors and will send out Ranger Suárez, and might not have slugger Kyle Schwarber because of a strained calf. The early line favors New York at around -180.

“I expect the Mets-Phillies series to be very good from a handle perspective,” Gable said.

» READ MORE: Rob Thomson responds to Mets announcer Keith Hernandez’s criticism of Phillies defense

Odds tracker

BetMGM’s odds on the Phillies to win the National League pennant via SportsOddsHistory.com:

Preseason: 13-1

May 1: 12-1

June 1: 16-1

July 1: 18-1

Aug. 1: 25-1

Aug. 11: 18-1

This & that

PointsBet said 88% of its handle on the Phillies-Marlins game Thursday afternoon was on the Phils, whose seven-game winning streak ended with a 3-0 loss.

  1. The Eagles were getting 93% of money wagered on the spread for their preseason opener against the Jets according to VegasInsider’s action tracker. The Eagles opened -1.5 but were actually lower at many sportsbooks, an indication that the sharp money is on the Jets.

  2. Si Woo Kim was 100-1 at BetMGM on Wednesday and J.J. Spaun was 300-1 to win the PGA’s St. Jude Classic. They each shot 62 on Thursday and share the first-round lead.

  3. Caesars took a $160,000 play on the slumping Yankees at -115 against Seattle on Wednesday. The Mariners scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh, highlighted by Carlos Santana’s two-run homer, to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 win. Santana had been in an 0-for-17 slump and was hitting .167 for the Mariners, who acquired him from Kansas City in late June. Rough beat.

He said it

“I hate to make it this simple, but most days you can just check the box scores and know how we ended up for the day in MLB. If the Mets, Phillies, or Yankees lost, we probably had a decent day.”

— Tom Gable, who runs the sportsbook at the Borgata in Atlantic City, which generally draws heavy crowds from New York and Philadelphia.