MLB Baseball
2012-05-17 - Pittsburgh Pirates at Washington Nationals
A Sports Betting Pick by Addicted
Baseball : North America : MLB
Thursday, May 17th, 2012, 7:05PM US
(12:05AM GMT)
PREVIEW
Washington will be looking for a sweep of this 2 game series here against the lowscoring Pittsburgh Pirates, having won yesterdays match 7-4. They have a solid pitcher on the mound, giving them a great chance at holding the Pirates damn near scoreless. I'll take the home team.
Washington are now 7-2 in the last 9 meetings here at home against Pittsburgh, which is a dominant trend. Now they send out Jordan Zimmerman, who is 2-3 with a 2.14ERA. obviously he has not picked up as many wins as he deserves because Washington were not scoring runs and supporting him, but that should change today. The Nats banged out 7 yesterday and should have chances at scoring a fair few again.
Anyway, Zimmerman has a huge advantage going into this, in that he has never faced Pittsburgh, so they won't really be used to his work. And his work has been rock solid I feel, as he has held 5 of 7 opponents to just 1 run. Pittsburgh are averaging 2.86 per game this season, which is very poor, not even 3 runs! Very difficult to win here with that kind of output.
The Pirates counter with James McDonald, who is 2-2 with a 2.42ERA. He's actually been good, giving up just 2 runs in his last 2 starts, but his last game ended in a loss, despite the Pirates giving up just 1 run! That's how bad they are offensively. McDonald has allowed just 1 run in 4 of his 7 starts but the team just cannot support him.
What is good is his ERA against Washington. It helps that McDonald is 0-1 with a 4.15ERA in career meetings with the Nationals, and I think Washingtons offensive breakout will continue today against him.
BETTING VERDICT
Washington are 14-5 at home, and facing a team that can barely get to 3 runs per game. With the superior pitcher, I shall take the Nationals to win tonights game.
The Pick :
Washington Nationals
