Olivia Reardon

Baseball was an odd obsession to pick up in Auckland, where almost no one around me followed it, but a college exchange in the States hooked me on the rhythm of a long season and I never let go. Following from the far side of the world, I leaned hard on the numbers to stay connected, and that turned into the way I read the sport. My picks lean heavily on starting pitching matchups, bullpen workload coming into a series, park factors, and how a lineup splits against left- and right-handed pitching. Baseball quietly rewards people who think in probabilities over a long season rather than reacting to last night, and that mindset shapes how I approach run lines. Six years in, I've come to love how honest the sport is over a full schedule and how cruel it can be on any single night. A great read can lose to one swing in the ninth. So I stay disciplined about process, keep my expectations fair, and show the reasoning rather than selling guarantees. — Olivia Reardon