MLB Baseball Betting: Atlanta Braves at Pittsburgh Pirates
The Atlanta Braves are in a tough spot at the moment. They were just a couple of games out of first place but they’ve hit the skids, the second place New York Mets have hit the skids and the first place Washington Nationals have regained their form. That leaves Atlanta in third place 2.5 games back of second place New York and 6 back of the Nats. Atlanta has lost 6 of 10 and four straight and a Pittsburgh Pirates team desperate to cut into the advantage of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL East. The Pirates have been treading water over the past couple of weeks with a 5-5 record in their last ten games. All the while the St. Louis Cardinals continue to cruise–they’ve won 7 of their last 10 games and have opened up an 8 game lead atop the division.
Atlanta doesn’t have a great road record (16-24) but that translates into a loss of -2.5 units. That suggests that at some point Atlanta might become a ‘buy’ on the road. They’ll have to show more life first. They were swept by the Nationals in their last series and completely shut down by the Washington pitching staff. They also couldn’t solve Bucs’ lefthander Francisco Liriano last night. Now they face righthander Charlie Morton who has been in decent form this year–and nearly unhittable at home where he has a 0.84 ERA at PNC Park. He’s coming off an awful start at Washington but in his last two starts at home he’s pitched 14 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball.
Julio Teheran gets the start for the Atlanta and he’s been in very poor form this year. He’s been mediocre in all situations but especially so on the road where he’s got a 7.17 ERA–though the Braves have managed to split his 8 away starts. Pirates have now won 3 of 4 meetings with the Braves this year including last night’s series opener, the first meeting between the teams in Pittsburgh this season.
Just see a lot more upside with Pittsburgh. Atlanta’s offense has been stagnant since Freddie Freeman started to miss time with his wrist injury and won’t get any better now that he’s on the 15 day disabled list.
BET PITTSBURGH PIRATES -160 OVER ATLANTA BRAVES
