The Braves veteran right-hander will be overshadowed by all the hype of the opposing pitcher, but I have a feeling the final spotlight will be placed on him.<\/p>\n
Washington Nationals at Atlanta Braves <\/strong><\/p>\n Washington squandered a lead for the third consecutive game on Sunday, dropping the final game of a road series, 4-3, against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not going to call any team the worst team in baseball,\u201d manager Jim Riggleman said.\u00a0 \u201cCertainly when you have leads and you give them up, that\u2019s frustrating.\u201d\u00a0 The Nationals have lost 10 of their last 12 games and have been held to 34 runs over that span.\u00a0 Washington is now 7-17 in June this season (-690) and 25-52 the last three years (-2,480).\u00a0 The club now faces a difficult stretch before the All-Star break, as they play four teams that have record above .500 (Braves, Mets, Padres, Giants).<\/p>\n Nationals SP Stephen Strasburg is 2-1 with a 1.78 ERA, while setting a Major League record for most strikeouts (41) in a pitcher\u2019s first four starts (-210).\u00a0 He picked up his first career loss in his last start against the Kansas City Royals on June 23, giving up a single run on nine hits.\u00a0 \u201cFor the most part, I went out there and threw strikes,\u201d Strasburg said after the loss.\u00a0 The right-hander has made just a single start away from Nationals Park, picking up a 9-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians (+100).\u00a0 He lasted a season-low 5.1 innings due to allowing his only five walks of the year.\u00a0 The Nationals have provided just one run of support in his last two outings, after supplying 14 runs in his first two starts.<\/p>\n Atlanta had its seven-game home win streak and 11-0 record in home day games snapped by a 10-4 loss to the visiting Detroit Tigers.\u00a0 The Braves finished the interleague season with an 11-7 record.\u00a0 The club is still a dominating 26-8 at home ($1,520) and continues a 10-day, nine-game homestand on Monday night in front of a national audience.\u00a0 All eyes will be on manager Bobby Cox\u2019s lineup card, as the fans hope to see rookie outfielder Jason Heyward take on the Nationals\u2019 phenom.\u00a0 Heyward has been battling a sore thumb and is expected to get an MRI on Monday.\u00a0 He was used as a pinch hitter on Saturday and sat out Sunday due to hitting just .181 in June.\u00a0 The Braves hope to improve its record against the NL East Division with the end of interleague play, as the team is 9-11 against division opponents (-370).<\/p>\n Braves SP Tim Hudson is a solid 7-3 with a 2.54 ERA in 15 starts this season (+40), allowing opposing batters to hit just .223 against him (.295 in 209).\u00a0 The right-hander is 1-2 over his last three starts due to the offense managing to score just six runs in those games.\u00a0 He has allowed seven runs and 17 hits in 22 innings of work over that span.\u00a0 Hudson is a dominating 8-1 with a 1.62 ERA in 14 career starts against the Nationals, but picked up a no-decision in his only start against the Nationals this season (7IP\/2ER).\u00a0 He has received a decision in all five of his starts at Turner Field, going 4-1 with a 1.87 ERA (+300).<\/p>\n Bettors should remain cautious in playing the rookie phenom on the road, especially with the Nationals being 1-7 as a road underdog of +100 to +125.\u00a0 Considering Atlanta has lost back-to-back games at home just once this year (April 21-22), it\u2019s going to be hard not to pull the trigger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Braves veteran right-hander will be overshadowed by all the hype of the opposing pitcher, but I have a feeling the final spotlight will be placed on him. Washington Nationals at Atlanta Braves Washington squandered a lead for the third consecutive game on Sunday, dropping the final game of a road series, 4-3, against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[243,2024,1653,925,850],"class_list":["post-5059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-espn2","tag-nl-east","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059","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=5059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5060,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions\/5060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}