I love the Nationals in this spot as they have started to score some runs of late especially vs. LHP which they face tonight in Bumgarner. Gio Gonzalez will go up against a team that has not hit him and he posts a 3.03 ERA at home and a 2.26 ERA at night. More importantly is he is on 6 days rest and posts a 1.69 ERA at home when he's on 5 or more days of rest over 6 starts this season. The Giants are 26th in OPS vs. LHP and are 7-20 in their L27 as an under dog. Bumgarner has worse numbers here.
He's got a 3.08 ERA on the road and a 3.15 ERA at night and faces a Nationals team that is scoring 6.31 runs per 9 while batting .308 vs. LHP over their last 10. Giants over that same time period are hitting .169 and scoring 2.25 runs per 9 vs. LHP. Nationals also have the edge in the bullpen with a 3.49 ERA over that period compared with the Giants 6.12. The Nationals have played well at home against bad teams and the Giants are under .400 on the road. The Nationals are 39-15 at home in their last 54 against teams with a road win% under .400.
The Marlins are just a terrible team and I like the confidence Bruce Chen is pitching with. Chen has a 1.79 ERA on the year and will face the Marlins young ace Jose Fernandez who I think is starting to approach his limits as a young pitcher already 132 innings into the year. He's got a 3.94 ERA on the road which is only average and posts a 4.24 ERA on the road when he is only on 4 days rest and now he has to face the hot hitting Royals who are 4th in OPS in the month of August, while the Marlins are 30th. Marlins on the year are actually scoring 1.5 runs per 9 less vs. LHP than the Royals are vs. RHP when we look at the home away splits and the bullpen numbers are also pretty far apart at over 1.5 run. When we look at the last 10 games for both ball clubs those numbers are exaggerated even more.
