Atlanta currently sits 2 \u00bd games up in the NL East after completing a sweep of the Phillies, with a 2-1 victory on Wednesday.\u00a0 In a span of 14 games, the Braves have climbed from last place in the division and 6 \u00bd games back, to its current position.\u00a0 The Braves own a Major League-best 19-6 record at home this season, but now head west with its current 12-16 mark away from Turner Field (-490).\u00a0 The team leads the majors with 237 walks and its .348 on-base percentage leads the National League.\u00a0 Rookie OF Jason Heyward leads the team with 10 homers and is batting .287 with a .412 on-base percentage.\u00a0 \u201cThe kid never ceases to amaze you,\u201d manager Bobby Cox said.<\/p>\n
Braves SP Kris Medlen gets the call for the series opener, as he comes in with a 1-0 record and 3.22 ERA in four starts since joining the rotation.\u00a0 The right-hander will be making his first start against the Blue Crew, but went 1-0 with a 2.35 ERA in four relief appearances against them last season.\u00a0 Surprisingly enough, Medlen has walked six batters in his last 18 innings of work, after issuing just three free passes in his first 25 frames this season.\u00a0 He has an even 3-3 record and 4.22 ERA in 24 career outings (five starts) on the road.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles enters the series off its fourth series sweep of the season, defeating Arizona 1-0 at Dodger Stadium.\u00a0 The Dodgers are currently on a season-long 13-game homestand (2-0), as the team looks to improve upon its 18-8 home mark (+540).\u00a0 Manager Joe Torre seemingly prepared his team for this important four-game stretch, giving half of the regular starting lineup the day off on Wednesday.\u00a0 This tactic may improve the team\u2019s 13-16 losing record outside of the division, as they\u2019ve dominated the NL West to a tune of 18-5.<\/p>\n
Dodgers SP Hiroki Kuroda is 5-3 with a 3.55 ERA in 10 starts this season.\u00a0 The right-hander brings an even 1-1 mark and 1.20 ERA in two career starts against the Braves, with both coming in 2008.\u00a0 One of those starts was a one-hit shutout at Dodger Stadium, as he took a perfect game into the eighth inning of that contest.\u00a0 Kuroda has been solid in five home starts thus far in 2010, posting a 2-1 record and 3.62 ERA.\u00a0 He has managed to walk just eight batters in 32.1 innings on his home turf, but has also allowed 37 hits over that span.<\/p>\n
All signs certainly point to the Dodgers getting the best of the Braves in the opening game of this series.\u00a0 Bettors will pay special attention to Atlanta\u2019s 0-3 mark as a road underdog of +100 to +125 (-300).\u00a0 Los Angeles tends to flourish when placed as a home favorite of -125 to -150, producing a dominating 7-1 mark in 2010 (+550).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Atlanta currently sits 2 \u00bd games up in the NL East after completing a sweep of the Phillies, with a 2-1 victory on Wednesday.\u00a0 In a span of 14 games, the Braves have climbed from last place in the division and 6 \u00bd games back, to its current position.\u00a0 The Braves own a Major League-best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[28,1680,351,1157,1681,25],"class_list":["post-3737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-baseball","tag-braves","tag-dodgers","tag-hiroki-kuroda","tag-kris-medlen","tag-mlb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737","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\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3738,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions\/3738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}