{"id":15391,"date":"2011-05-12T16:04:55","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T21:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15391"},"modified":"2011-05-12T16:04:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T21:04:55","slug":"nl-betting-atlanta-braves-look-to-avoid-being-swept-against-washington-nats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nl-betting-atlanta-braves-look-to-avoid-being-swept-against-washington-nats-15391\/","title":{"rendered":"NL Betting: Atlanta Braves Look To Avoid Being Swept Against Washington Nats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Nationals (18-18)\u00a0 AT Atlanta Braves (20-18)<\/strong>
\nMay 12, 2011 at 7:10 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 ATL -205, WAS +175<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 ATL -182, WAS +162<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 7.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 7.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 WAS- J. Zimmerman, ATL- D. Lowe<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
To say that Lowe has had success against the Nats would be a collossal understatement<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last game Derek Lowe was unstoppable on the mound and flirted with a no hitter.\u00a0 That’s great for the Braves, but perhaps what’s even better is his track record with the Washington Nationals.\u00a0 He has a 19 2\/3rds scoreless innings streak against the Nationals, so if he keeps up his end of the bargain, Atlanta will barely have to score to win.\u00a0 He lamented missing the no hitter, but kept his stance realistic regarding the rare feat.\u00a0 \u201cI knew (the no-hitter) wouldn\u2019t be happening,\u201d he said, then speaking of his blister on his foot… \u201cI knew it would come to an abrupt end. I\u2019m disappointed in my skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

On March 31st, Lowe threw 5 2\/3rds scoreless innings while allowing only three hits — all singles.\u00a0 The difference for Lowe in 2010 was that he rediscovered his slider and he’s been moving it effectively in his pitches this season.\u00a0 His end to 2010 was phenomenal and his 16-12 final record is more than respectable.\u00a0 In 193 innings pitched, he had a 4.00 ERA and a 1.39 WHIP.\u00a0 Getting off to a good start this season only furthers the possibility that he will exceed his projected stats of 13-11 with a 4.14 ERA, as rendered by the PECOTA projection.<\/p>\n

This third game will give the favored Braves a chance to make up some ground on the 24-12 Phillies who have a 5 game lead over the third placed Braves.\u00a0 If the playoffs started today, the Braves would be 2 games out of the Wild Card spot, so moving up in the standings is imperative, early though it may be.\u00a0 But the Nationals have taken the first two games and utility infielder Alex Cora realizes the significance of the game for the Nats.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom where we started the road trip to now, with a chance to sweep these guys, is big for this team,\u201d said Cora, who hit a game tying 2 run single.<\/p>\n

Washington will send Jordan Zimmerman to the mound.\u00a0 His last start against the Braves was not a quality one, pitching only 6 innings and giving up 3 runs (only 2 of which were earned) in 6 innings of a 11-2 loss to the Braves.\u00a0 He was having issues controlling the ball but in the 3-2 10 inning victory over Florida, he threw 19 consecutive strikes at one point and his pitching appears to be back in top form.<\/p>\n

His PECOTA projection for the season is for a 6-6 record with a 4.27 ERA.\u00a0 If his arm holds up, he’ll pitch considerably more than the projected 86 innings pitched.\u00a0 During his initial return, he was able to throw all four of his pitches for strikes and his fastball was creeping into the mid 90s again.\u00a0 He was at one point regarded as a high prospect, but after surgery so much can change.\u00a0 He’s looked good so far in 2011, though, so Nats fans and players are keeping their fingers crossed for the hurler.<\/p>\n

Jayson Werth may make a difference for the Nationals, however, as he has gone 7 of 25 off Lowe with a home run in his career, significantly better than most of his teammates have faired against Lowe.\u00a0 Lowe has 14 RBIs this season and 7 of them have come in the last 5 games.\u00a0 Laynce Nix has also been hitting well and has gone 4 of 9 so far in this series.\u00a0 It may all be for naught though against a pitcher that has had so much success against the Nats.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Washington is 4-1 SU in their last 5 games and the total has gone OVER in 13 of Washington’s last 19 games on the road.\u00a0 The Nats are 4-1 SU in their last 5 road games and the total has gone UNDER in 12 of their last 18 against the Atlanta Braves.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 5 against Atlanta, however, while the Nats are 7-3 SU in their last 10 against Atlanta.\u00a0 The Nats are 7-3 SU in their last 10 against the Braves and Washington is 5-1 SU in their last 6 road games against the Braves.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Washington’s last 7 games on the road against the Hawks.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER in 12 of Atlanta’s last 17 games and the Hawks are 7-3 SU in their last 10 games.\u00a0 The Hawks are 5-2 SU over their last 7 at home and the total has gone OVER in 6 of their last 7 at home.\u00a0 It has gone UNDER in 12 of the last 18 against the Washington Nationals and it has gone OVER in 4 of Atlanta’s last 5 games against the Nats.\u00a0 The Braves are 3-7 SU in their last 10 games against the Nats and the total has gone UNDER in 5 of Atlanta’s last 7 games at home against the Nats.\u00a0 Atlanta is 1-5 SU in their last 6 home games against the Washington Nationals.<\/p>\n

Given Lowe’s dominance, logic would seemingly dictate that Atlanta avoids being swept in this series and wins tonight’s game.\u00a0 The Nats looked impressive in the first two games, having little problem with run production as they scored 7 runs in each game, but tonight it won’t prove to be so easy and I expect that Nats to have lot of problems offensively against a pitcher that has dominated them in the recent past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Nationals (18-18)\u00a0 AT Atlanta Braves (20-18) May 12, 2011 at 7:10 PM EST Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 ATL -205, WAS +175 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 ATL -182, WAS +162 Opening Total: 7.5 Current Total: 7.5 SP:\u00a0 WAS- J. Zimmerman, ATL- D. Lowe Last game Derek Lowe was unstoppable on the mound and flirted with a no hitter.\u00a0 That’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[243,850],"class_list":["post-15391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15392,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15391\/revisions\/15392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}