Baseball Betting: Philadelphia Phillies at Washington Nationals

Added on Jul 30, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

The Washington Nationals will try to keep their grips on the NL East lead as they play the second of three games against the Philadelphia Phillies. Entering Monday’s action the upstart Nats held a 4 game lead over the Atlanta Braves. Washington has been playing excellent baseball of late and will try to keep up this form against the disappointing Phillies.

Philadelphia Phillies at Washington Nationals
July 31, 2012 4:05 PM Pacific

Despite all evidence to the contrary it appears that the Philadelphia Phillies and starting pitcher Cliff Lee are still considered ‘name brands’, at least to the baseball betting public. That’s the only way to explain the fact that the bumbling Phils are still priced as if they were a divisional contender and Lee still priced as if he were a Cy Young candidate when nothing could be further from the reality of their current form. We’ll start with the Phillies as a team–and they’re easily the most disappointing team in baseball this season. Before the season started they were expected to contend for the NL East title but instead they’re trying to avoid finishing dead last. Philadelphia is 16.5 games out of first place and 2 games behind fourth place Miami. They’ve lost big money in almost every baseball betting situation including -20.2 units against divisional rivals and -24 units against opponents with winning records.

Cliff Lee gets the start for the Phillies and he’s struggling through the worst season of his career. His 3.95 ERA is high by his standards but more problematic is the fact that Philadelphia has lost just about every time he’s started–they’ve lost 12 of his 17 starts overall and 7 of 10 on the road. While both he and the team is overvalued it gives us a nice opportunity to step in with the red hot Nationals who have won 8 of their last 10 and 17 of their last 25. Were that not appealing enough, Washington will start their ace, Stephen Strasburg, in this game. Strasburg has quickly regained his top form coming back from Tommy John surgery with a 2.76 ERA on the season. More importantly, the Nationals have won 14 of his 20 starts this season including 6 of 9 at home. At a very reasonable price it’s a no brainer to take one of the best pitchers in the game and a playoff bound team in good form against a team going nowhere.

Bet Washington Nationals (Strasburg) -145 over Philadelphia Phillies (Lee)