MLB Betting Free Picks: San Francisco @ Washington
Added on Jul 09, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
No Comments
Sportsbooks keep serving up baseball betting opportunities as the MLB heads toward their All Star Break, and we really like a position in Friday’s National League game between the San Francisco Giants and the Washington Nationals. The Giants are in 4th place in the NL West trying to make up ground on the San Diego Padres, and are currently five games back. The Nationals have shown promise at various points this season, but overall its the ‘same old same old’ for the long suffering team. They’re in last place in the NL East with a 38-48 record 12.5 games out of first.
San Francisco Giants (Cain) at Washington Nationals (Strasburg)
July 9, 4:05 PM Pacific
The Nationals do have several things to be happy about at this point in the season–for one, they’re nowhere near being the worst team either in the National League or in the Major Leagues. More significantly, they’ve received an excellent comeback effort from veteran Livan Hernandez who has regained his status as a solid starting pitcher. The biggest excitement surrounding the team, however, is the arrival of their ‘pitcher of the future’–Steven Strasburg has looked downright dominant at points this season and appears to live up to the considerable hype he received on the road to the majors.
That being said, we’re going to go against him here. You can’t argue with his solid 2.45 ERA (2.16 at home) and his 53 strikeouts in 36.7 innings of work is no joke. On the other hand, its important to keep in mind that despite his superlative play that the Nats are just 3-3 in his 6 starts for a -2.1 unit loss. He’s not been quite as effective in his last three outings, with a record of 0-2 and a 3.12 ERA. Bottom line–he’s not been receiving a lot of help from his teammates. In two of his last three starts the Nationals hung a goose egg on offense. No matter how good a pitcher is, a lack of run support is deadly. Matt Cain is off of a couple of substandard outings himself, but we can’t get past the way that the Giants have dominated the Nationals in head to head play. San Fran has won 13 of the last 16 meetings between the teams including 6 of 7 in DC. No matter how good Strasburg is–and we think he’s very good–Washington is still a bad team and we’re getting a nice value playing against them here.
Bet San Francisco (Cain) +135 over Washington (Strasburg)
