MLB Baseball Betting: Atlanta Braves at Washington Nationals

It’s been rough going for the Atlanta Braves in the early part of the 2016 baseball season. Five games, five losses all at home to St. Louis (3 games) and Washington (2 games). Now the Braves will go on the road starting with a four game series in Washington followed by a three game weekend set in Miami. The Braves usual strength–their starting pitching–has been abysmal allowing 39 runs in 5 games. Their offense has been erratic at best but, then again, when you’re giving up 7+ runs per game that is a secondary factor.

Washington is 3-1 on the season and started the year with a somewhat disjointed schedule–two games at Atlanta followed by two home games against Miami. That makes it hard for a team to get any sort of rhythm or continuity and baseball is all about continuity-especially early in the season. Things get back to normal now for the Nationals and unless the Braves pick up their level of play the next four games at home against Atlanta could be little more than a scrimmage.

With the Nationals it’s pretty much ‘pick your poison’ against their ridicululously deep pitching staff but today they’ll be sending right handed superstar Max Scherzer. Scherzer looked sharp in his first start of the year going 7 innings allowing 3 hits, 2 earned runs while walking 2 and striking out 7. He hasn’t been especially good in his career against Atlanta–his teams have a record of 2-4 in these starts with Scherzer posting an ERA of 3.78.

Atlanta will counter with righthander Bud Norris who looked reasonably good in his first start of the year–7 innings, 3 ER, 6 hits, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts. Unfortunately, the Braves’ offense did nothing to help him as they lost a 3-1 decision to Washington. The Braves have been brutalized by the Nationals in DC over the past three seasons–Washington is 15-5 during that time frame good for +6.8 units of profit. The overall series is much more even with the Nationals holding a 24-16 +1.9 unit advantage.

Washington is the better team but the Braves aren’t as bad as they’ve looked so far. Sports betting is about valuations and despite their early struggles the price on Atlanta is too generous to pass up.

BET ATLANTA BRAVES +210 OVER WASHINGTON NATIONALS