Sunday Night Sharp Report: How Pros Are Betting Yankees-Orioles

The Yankees and Orioles' four game series at Camden Yards comes to an end tonight on Sunday Night Baseball, and as is usually the case for nationally televised games, it has drawn a fair amount of betting action.

The Yanks were featured in today's list of most popular bets, as they've drawn 80% of bettors in what's on pace to be the most heavily bet game of the night. And that should come as no surprise.

New York has won the first three games of this series, which has brought them within 6.5 games of the Red Sox in the AL East lead. It's also dropped the O's' win percentage to .285, which puts them on pace for just 46 wins on the season.

But while the public is completely sold on the Bombers, sharps are seeing this one a bit differently.

Baltimore has also drawn 54% of the money wagered on this game despite their low ticket percentage, indicating that bigger — likely sharper — wagers are behind the O's.

In fact, wiseguys at Pinnacle and 5Dimes have hammered the O's, causing market-wide line movement on this game — the O's have fallen from +243 to +223 at Pinnacle.

In general, fading good public teams in the second half of the season has been a profitable strategy. The public tends to overvalue teams that performed well in the first half, which offers contrarian bettors opportunities to profit by fading them.

Since 2005, when a .600 or better team gets less than 35% of bets against a divisional underdog in the second half of the year, the dog has profited more than 118 units for a 19.5% return on investment … and that's all with a 46% win rate. Given the +223 line for Baltimore tonight, sharps only need to hit this spot at a 31% rate to profit.

Sharp angle: Orioles +223