MLB Betting: It is a matinee on Wednesday with the Washington Nationals favored against the Miami Marlins in a contest that can be seen on MLB Network. The Marlins held it together for quite a well after losing Jose Fernandez but they have now fallen well back in the National League Wild Card race. They will be home underdogs in this game against a Nationals team battling for first place with the Braves in the NL East. Let’s look at this game on Wednesday and MLB picks.
Nationals Pitching
The main reason the Nationals are in the race in the NL East is their pitching which is 2nd in the league in ERA. They have some big name pitchers like Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez and Doug Fister but it has actually been Tanner Roark with the best ERA among the starters. The bullpen has also been really good from setup man Tyler Clippard to closer Rafael Soriano. The pitching needs to be good because the offense is weak and it doesn’t figure to get any better now that Ryan Zimmerman is on the DL.
Marlins Pitching
Miami’s pitching simply isn’t the same without Fernandez. The team still has Henderson Alvarez but there is not much in the starting rotation behind him. The bullpen features closer Steve Cishek but it is sometimes hard to get him the ball. The offense is okay as they are 14th in the league in runs scored but the team simply doesn’t score enough runs to make up for a struggling pitching staff.
Series Notes
The Nationals had taken six of the last ten in this series before it began with six of the last seven going over. The Nationals had also won six of ten on the road in Miami with the last six going over.
MLB Picks
The trends are really in favor of the game going over but neither team scores that many runs and with Zimmerman out of the lineup for the Nationals it could be really hard for Washington to score. We’ll look for this matinee to go under the total.
