Braves and Kershaw Crash

Hopefully no one was deterred by, and by some distance, the longest price in MLB playoff history for a Home 'Dog on Tuesday night.

The Tampa Bay Rays extended the profits of this simple system defeating the Houston Astros 4-1 at 3.20. 

This season's results now look like this: 

Prior to Tuesday, the biggest price on a Home team in the play-offs was 2.6 back in 2009, and the average price is around 2.18.

Last night's loser was the Atlanta Braves who gave up a playoff record 10 runs in the first inning. At odds-on, some of you may have excluded this loser from selection, but six of the eight that have previously been in this category have been winners.

With a small sample size of just 134 matches and a 11.7% ROI, this isn't one of the strongest systems I've shared, but nevertheless Joseph Buchdahl's calculator gives the results a 1 in 11 chance of being by chance.

The final game of the Division Series is tonight, and at -280 the Houston Astros are certainly not a Home Underdog v Tampa Bay Rays. All three previous Home playoff favourites at this price or shorter have won. Not a large sample, and none were in the final game of a series.

As previously mentioned in this blog, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw has a problem in the playoffs, and it repeated again this season. He lost his only start in the Washington Nationals series, making it three playoff losses on the trot, and gave up a 3-1 lead last night after allowing back-to-back solo home runs as a relief pitcher. The Nationals won the game in the tenth inning to advance.