MLB Baseball Betting: New York Mets at Washington Nationals
This might be the most important series of the season for the New York Mets and they sure didn’t get things started right with a loss on Monday. That puts the Mets 10 games back of the Washington Nationals with 18 games to play. New York is still in the wild card mix but best case scenario there are three teams divided by a total of 2 games competing for two spots. There are also three other teams within 7 games that could move into contention.
The Nationals haven’t had a ‘stress free’ season and have dealt with a number of injuries to key personnel, not the least of which is Stephen Strasburg who is listed as ‘out indefinitely’ with soreness in his surgically reconstructed elbow. He’s getting a ‘second opinion’ but there’s no guarantee that he’ll be back this year. Even with this adversity the Nats have taken care of business winning 10 of their last 13 and not letting New York make up any ground in the divisional race. The Mets have to be feeling some frustration since they’ve been playing well (7-4 in the month of September) but just can’t cut into the Nationals’ margin.
New York will start right hander Noah Syndergaard who has looked very good in his recent starts. In his last three games he’s gone 19 innings allowing just 3 earned runs, 11 hits and 18 strikeouts against 7 walks. The Mets have won 9 of his 12 road starts this year. The Nationals will start with A.J. Cole who has been ‘hit and miss’ in his 4 starts this season. Washington has won only one of his assignments–but that was a 4-1 win over the Mets and Syndergard on the road a week or so ago.
It could be ‘deja vu all over again’ here. The Mets haven’t hit anyone well this year but have been especially poor against right handed pitching with a record of 58-51 (-8.9 units) and averaging just 3.0 runs per game with a .238 batting average. Syndergaard is likely the better pitcher in this matchup but the Mets’ bats have a way of making ordinary pitchers look exceptional. Washington has won 11 of 17 head to head this year including 5 of 7 at home.
BET WASHINGTON NATIONALS +130 OVER NEW YORK METS
