A two-time\u00a0Cy Young winner takes the hill as a heavy favorite on Wednesday night, but underdog bettors may find value in the .500 visitors.<\/p>\n
Washington Nationals at San Francisco Giants<\/strong><\/p>\n Washington\u2019s 10-game road trip got off to a tumultuous start even before dropping the first game of the series, as the team experienced travel problems after completing a stretch of 20 games in 20 days.\u00a0 The Nationals currently sit at 23-23 (-900) for the season and have lost 12 of their last 14 games against the Giants.\u00a0 \u201cThey have a Cy Young and they have Matt Cain, Zito.\u00a0 They have a bunch of quality pitchers,\u201d manager Jim Riggleman said.\u00a0 Success against right-handed starters has been a major turning point for the team this season, posting an 18-16 record (+770) so far this season.\u00a0 This is a dramatic different from the team\u2019s 105-160 (-1,920) mark the last three seasons.<\/p>\n San Francisco ended a season-high five-game losing streak with a 4-2 win over the Washington Nationals in the series-opener on Tuesday night.\u00a0 The main problem plaguing the Giants in becoming a major force in the National League is the team\u2019s inability to hit with runners in scoring position.\u00a0 The offense snapped a 0-for-25 streak with RISP last night, but still has an overall average of .230 in the category, ranking last among all NL teams.\u00a0 The linesmaker has placed the Giants as a heavy favorite in tonight\u2019s matchup, marking the first time they\u2019ve been favored by -225 of higher.\u00a0 San Francisco has compiled a 9-6 record when being placed as a home favorite of -250 to -330 since 1997 (-770), including just a 0-1 mark last year (-310).<\/p>\n Nationals SP Luis Atilano is set to oppose the reigning Cy Young Award winner on his home turf tonight.\u00a0 After starting the year with a 3-0 record, Atilano was hit hard by the Mets on Thursday, allowing six runs in just 4.1 innings of work.\u00a0 \u201cEverything feels fine, but unfortunately, it was not a good night,\u201d he said after the start.\u00a0 The 25-year-old right-hander is a perfect 2-0 with a 2.76 ERA in three road starts this season (+240).\u00a0 The Nationals have posted an even 3-3 record overall with him toeing the rubber in 2010 (+160).<\/p>\n Giants ace Tim Lincecum looks to bounce back from his worst start of the season, when he picked up a no-decision in a 8-7 road loss to division-rival Arizona.\u00a0 He lasted a season-low five innings in that contest, allowing five earned runs on five hits while also issuing five free passes.\u00a0 The right-hander is a dominating 3-0 with a 1.78 ERA in four starts this season at AT&T Park (+160), piling up 34 strikeouts in just over 30 innings of work.\u00a0 Lincecum is set to make his fourth career start against the Nationals, going 1-0 with a 1.77 ERA in his previous three outings.\u00a0 He has averaged a mind-blowing 13.3 strikeouts per nine innings versus NL East opponents this season (42 K, 22 IP).<\/p>\n Bettors must seek value in this type of situation, finding the Nationals with an even 2-3 mark this season when placed as a road underdog of +225 to +250 (+150).\u00a0 It\u2019s worthwhile in looking in Washington\u2019s direction in playing the run-line, considering that all three of Atilano\u2019s road starts have been decided by a one-run margin.\u00a0 This fits well with the Giants playing in three straight one-run contests of their own with Lincecum on the hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A two-time\u00a0Cy Young winner takes the hill as a heavy favorite on Wednesday night, but underdog bettors may find value in the .500 visitors. Washington Nationals at San Francisco Giants Washington\u2019s 10-game road trip got off to a tumultuous start even before dropping the first game of the series, as the team experienced travel problems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1611,1610,1612,736,715,850],"class_list":["post-3589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-att-park","tag-cy-young-award","tag-luis-atilano","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-tim-lincecum","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3589","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3591,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3589\/revisions\/3591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}