How to Bet the First 5 Innings in Baseball (F5 Bets)

If you want to know how to bet the first 5 innings in baseball, it helps to know what such a bet is called and how it works. Five 5 innings bets, sometimes called F5 bets, are exactly what the name implies. They’re wagers on the outcome of the first five full innings of a baseball game. First 5 innings bets aren’t all that different from wagers on full games, except for the innings limit and the fact that F5 bets can end in ties.

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This post describes F5 bets, what they’re like, how to make them, and discusses some basic first five innings baseball betting strategies.

Why the First Five Innings?

F5 is a standard betting format available at sportsbooks all over the world.

A baseball game’s first five innings are usually dominated by the performances of the teams’ two starting pitchers. From the perspective of defense, a nine-inning baseball game is really two games stapled together – the battle between starting pitchers and the battle between bullpens once those starters retire.

Looked at this way, betting on a game’s overall outcome is extremely complicated, since you have to analyze the game through the lens of both starting and bullpen pitching. First five innings bettors focus, for the most part, on the starting pitching duel.

Not all starters make it a full five innings. Allow enough runs and the manager is liable to pull you regardless of the pitch count. As of the 2021 season, the average start was just 4.7 innings. Traditionally, if a starting pitcher can’t make it five innings on a consistent basis, he’ll find himself working as a reliever.

MLB F5 Betting Format (How to Bet the First 5 Innings in Baseball)

Here’s what an F5 line might look like at your favorite book:

F5 Innings: Houston Astros                          -0.5        -120       O4.5
F5 Innings: Washington nationals              +0.5       +110      U4.5

Notice first that the run line on F5 games is different from the one for full-length baseball games. Most of the time, the run line is 0.5. That means if the game is tied or if the underdog is winning outright, bets on the underdog win. You’ll occasionally find run lines outside 0.5 on F5 bets, but they’re about as common as non-1.5 run lines in the standard game length format.

Here’s another thing you’ll notice when you check out F5 lines:

Books are less willing to reward an underdog win. And they’ll require less of a risk for a bet on a favorite. Basically, F5 lines are less drastic in all directions.

Obviously, the game total will be smaller than with a full-length game, though it isn’t always proportional to the difference in inning length. There’s value to be found in the fact that the F5 game total is out of balance with the full game total. This angle can help you become profitable – check out this post on break-even sports betting for ideas on how to use F5 bets and other tactics to improve your chances of breaking even.

How to Bet the First 5 Innings in Baseball Step by Step

The tips below represent my best knowledge about taking advantage of FB betting options at your favorite baseball book.

Get Really Good at Handicapping Starting Pitchers

In first five innings bets, it’s all about starting pitching. The average length of a start has slipped to below 5 innings. Still, as many pitchers go beyond 4.7 as end before it, so a five-inning start is still considered the gold standard.

That means F5 MLB bettors need to be great at handicapping starting pitching. Thankfully, modern stats have made this easy.

Focus on WHIP

I like to focus on WHIP, which is the sum of a pitcher’s walk and hits divided by total innings pitched. The easiest way to remember what’s good and bad in terms of WHIP is that 1.2 is an average performance – anything below that is awesome, anything above it is troublesome. This can help you quickly handicap pitchers more accurately than the boring old ERA figures printed in the papers.

GB% Is Another Stat to Look At

When I need another stat to balance my analysis, I use GB%. That’s the percentage of ground balls put in play. When a pitcher has a low WHIP and a relatively high GB%, that means the pitcher is less effected by in-game factors like weather, wind, or crowd noise. I tend to back that guy over the other guy.

What’s a good GB%?

The league average (including relief pitchers) is 44%. So, I like guys with a GB% of 50% or more – the more the better.

Why is GB% so important?

Ground balls produce about 0.05 runs per out. It takes a lot of ground balls to put runs on the board. Fly balls produce about three times as many runs, and line drives push out about 1.26 runs per out – an untenable situation for any starter.

Using this Strategy

How do I use this strategy?

I remember a few “Battle of the Andersons” from the 2021 MLB season. When I saw Tyler Anderson (starting for the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates) at home against Brett Anderson (starting for the heavily-favored Brewers), my first five betting alarm went off. That’s because Tyler’s WHIP hovered around 0.9 while Brett’s WHIP floundered most of the season around 1.5.

Obviously, the Pirates were often the losing team in this matchup, going 5-14 against Milwaukee overall. But I found a major benefit when the Pirates started their best guy against a relative Brewers scrub – in the first five innings only.

Watch for Lineup Changes

Of all the major sports, baseball is the most concerned with how its injury reports are used in the betting business. In late 2021, we found out that MLB is taking extra steps to prevent the leaking of injury information to professional handicappers. They’re more than a little paranoid about it.

Of course, injuries aren’t the only reasons lineups shift. If it seems like roster changes are more frequent in the modern game, that’s because they are. Most of a modern manager’s work happens when they put the pencil to the roster.

Not only do F5 bettors need to be up-to-date on injury reports. They also need to be aware of how a team has shifted their roster in the past and work those possibilities into their analysis. Check out this analysis of how to beat the sportsbook for help in this department.

Understand When Underdogs Have Value in F5 Betting

A big knock on underdog betting in baseball is that these least-favored teams tend to have trouble holding a lead. Back a baseball underdog and you’re likely to experience a very typical rollercoaster – rising hopes followed by misery. It’s hard to gain and hold a lead over nine innings.

The big culprit here is relief pitching. In the grind of the MLB regular season (when most teams play six games every week) a baseball team is only as good as its bullpen. The guys coming in after the starter make or break a team’s W-L record.

Of course, a team’s staying power matters less in first five innings bets. When a starting pitcher goes all five innings (or further), first five bettors need not concern themselves at all with bullpen pitching.

Here’s a rule of thumb I use in analyzing first five innings bets:

Look for underdogs starting their ace against a favorite starting someone near the bottom of the rotation. There’s room to wiggle outside that rule. I sometimes find value backing a dog against an opponent ace. It depends on context. But this is a decent place to start looking for F5 underdog bets.

Here’s another ideal situation to back an underdog in first five baseball bets:

I like home dogs coming off a high-scoring previous win. These teams tend to explode early in their next game before an equal crash towards the end of the game. Backing them in the first five will get you a smaller payout than if you had them going all nine. But it’s still a potentially profitable angle.

Try combining some of this strategy with a betting system like the Martingale System for sports bettors. You might even see better results that way.

How to Bet the First 5 Innings in Baseball: Conclusion

First five innings bets are less popular than other forms of baseball betting. It’s an obscure market, seen as more for the hardcore baseball fans and bettors than for casual players.

I’m not sure F5 baseball betting deserves that reputation. The stakes are lower, as is the time commitment to watching your bet play out. I also know plenty of bettors who are making F5 bets part of their larger parlay strategy. It’s catching on, in part because handicapping the first five innings is much easier than predicting the outcome of a full baseball game.