MLB Baseball Betting: Washington Nationals at Philadelphia Phillies
The Major League Baseball season is winding down and a number of teams are fighting for postseason qualification. At the same time, there are teams that look like they’re just ‘playing out the string’ and trying to get the schedule over with as quickly as possible. This looks to be such a matchup as the Washington Nationals are trying to make one last charge at the NL East leading New York Mets. Their opposition is in a battle of their own–to avoid finishing with the worst record in baseball. The Philadelphia Phillies are currently tied with the hapless Atlanta Braves–each team has only 56 wins and are the only two teams in the majors with fewer than 60 victories. Neither team is anxious to relinquish the last place crown–Atlanta has lost 8 of 10 while Philadelphia has lost 7 of 10.
Washington has also been erratic. They’ve now won two straight but before that they lost 5 straight for a 5-5 record in their last 10 games. That won’t get it done in any circumstance but especially given the torrid form of the New York Mets who enter Tuesday’s action having won 9 of their last 10 games. The Nationals are 9.5 games behind the Mets and are also 9.5 games out of the final NL wild card berth–the NL Central has pretty much wrapped up both of the wild card spots between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs.
Nationals’ ace Stephen Strasburg gets the start here but he’s having a very disappointing season. Overall, he’s got a 4.30 ERA and the Nats have won only 10 of his 19 starts. On the road, his ERA balloons to 5.09 with Washington taking 4 of his 9 away starts. As uncharacteristically poor as those numbers are by Strasburg’s standards they’re downright Cy Young worthy compared to David Buchanan’s stats. Buchanan has a 9.12 ERA and the Phillies have lost 9 of his 11 starts. In his last three starts he’s got a brutal 22.00 ERA from 22 earned runs in 9 innings of work. Not surprisingly, the Phillies lost all three games.
Given the dubious form of both pitchers we don’t want anything to do with the side in this game. Washington is nominally the better team but they’re not worth -250. Instead, we’ll play this game to go Over 8.
BET WASHINGTON/PHILADELPHIA OVER 8
