Fresh off a 3-0 Friday, including a five-run winner with the Rays on his 5% top chalk play of the season, Stephen Nover has found a strong early Saturday baseball play. Ride Stephen's expertise and hot hand to cash this discounted winner well before sitting down for dinner.
Member Notes
Today’s Free Picks
| Sport | Game Selection | Game Time |
|---|---|---|
| MLB | (951) Cincinnati Reds at (952) Pittsburgh Pirates | 4:05pm EDT - Jun 27/2026 |
The PLAY: Cincinnati Reds -118 Chase Burns (RHP), Jared Jones (RHP) Must Start
The Reds upset the Pirates and reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes, 6-4, on Friday. Now the advantage switches to Cincinnati with a pitching matchup of Chase Burns against Jared Jones.
Burns is firmly in the NL Cy Young Award talk this season with a 9-1 record, 2.00 ERA, 1.05 ratio with 10.7 strikeouts per nine innings while allowing 1.1 home runs per nine innings. That already low ERA gets even lower at 1.86 during his last seven starts.
The Pirates have not scored off Burns in 12 innings this season, managing only four hits and striking out 14 times.
Jones has made five starts since coming off the injured list. His numbers have not been good - a 5.75 ERA and a 1.52 WHIP in five starts while allowing 1.8 home runs and 3.5 walks per nine innings.
The price is cheap enough to back Burns.
Consultant Bio
Stephen Nover is unique among professional handicappers. A multiple award-winning sportswriter for numerous newspapers, including the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nover has one the best combinations of gambling and media sources in the world.
The author of two sports gambling books, "Las Vegas Sports Beat" and "Sports Gaming Beat", along with a book on fantasy football titled, "Winning Fantasy Football", Nover is a former professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas having taught a football handicapping class there. He also was the co-host of the Sunday night sports betting radio show "The Stardust Line" during the 1990's.
Parlaying nearly 50 years worth of professional gambling experience with tremendous knowledge of the players through elite deep-roster Rotisserie leagues and building on copious gaming and media sources - having worked for newspapers in the Midwest, South and West and also for legendary Hall of Fame oddsmaker Roxy Roxborough - Nover is a true Las Vegas wise guy. He helped learn his craft from such masters as Roxborough, Dave Malinsky, Lem Banker and Russ Culver.
Part of what makes Nover so special is the pride he takes in writing his deep-dive analysis, which always is unique, well-researched and sometimes entails out-of-the-box thinking.