Baseball Betting Picks: San Diego Padres at Atlanta Braves

Added on Aug 15, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

The Atlanta Braves are trying to run down the red hot Washington Nationals atop the NL East and have a good opportunity to pick up another win when they host the San Diego Padres at Turner Field on Wednesday. The Braves lost the opening game of the series but rebounded on Tuesday behind a stellar performance by veteran Tim Hudson. With games today and Thursday Atlanta will be looking to keep pace with the Nationals. Washington plays at San Francisco tonight and is idle on Thursday giving Atlanta a great chance to close the gap.

San Diego Padres at Atlanta Braves
August 15, 2012 4:10 PM Pacific

Contending teams often look to pick up ‘reinforcements’ at the trade deadline but they don’t always work out. When they do, however, it can give a big boost to a team’s postseason chances. That is the case with Atlanta’s recently acquired lefthander Paul Maholm. Maholm was one of the few bright spots on a dismal Chicago Cubs team and has been even better since joining the Braves. Maholm has a 1.59 ERA in his last three starts (two with Atlanta) and his only loss in that stretch was a result of bad run support. Between the Cubs and Braves, Maholm’s teams have won 8 of his 12 home starts this season–very impressive considering how ineffective his previous team has been for most of the year.

The Padres will counter with Edson Volquez–they’ve won 6 of his 11 road assignments but his ERA in these games (5.04) is not very impressive. His recent form is downright bizarre–Volquez has been downright ineffective allowing 15 earned runs and averaging 3 1/3 innings per start in his last three games. Despite a 13.50 ERA in his last three the Padres managed to win two of these games. It’s doubtful that they’ll repeat that trick tonight–San Diego has struggled against left handed pitching this season (16-25 -7.4 units) while Atlanta has pummeled right handers (47-24 +20 units). That dichotomy suggests that this game could be a blowout win for Atlanta. The Braves can’t afford to lose any more ground to Washington and have made mincemeat out of losing teams since the All Star Break. In the second half of the season Atlanta is 19-6 +10.6 units against teams under .500.

Bet Atlanta (Maholm) -165 over San Diego (Volquez)