Petco Park – A Pitcher and Under Bettor’s Best Friend

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Over the last few years Petco Park has developed a reputation as being a very pitcher friendly ballpark, but after looking at the statistics year after year it is almost impossible to overstate how tough it is to score at Petco.

If you include this season up to this point Petco Park has been the kindest park of them all to pitchers for three years straight now. How is that figure calculated? These figures are calculated by comparing the stats of each player at home versus their stats on the road.

Basically what this means is if you take a look at the splits, Padres pitchers look brilliant at home, but tend to look quite pedestrian on the road. On the same level, Padres hitters see their overall numbers suffer quite drastically because of the number of games they play at home.

Between the humidity levels and the lack of wind, this park allows outfielders to play in positions that keep balls that may be extra bases elsewhere to just a single here.

What does this mean to the average sports bettor?

Primarily it means totals are difficult to predict at Petco Park, but you certainly want to think twice before laying too much down on the over. In fact, prior to this season, in the last five seasons Petco Park has produced 210 games under the posted total and just 175 games over the posted total.

Quite obviously, Vegas is responding by lowering the posted run totals to much lower levels, but Petco just continues to prove to be unbelievably friendly to pitchers. At some point Las Vegas will catch up and will set the totals to a point where the over is a decent play at Petco Park, but we haven’t seen that time just yet.

For now, Petco Park is a friend to the pitcher and those who love to bet on the under!

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