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Posted at 11:45 AM EST.

7:05 PM EST. As perennial underachievers, the Nationals can be a tough team to trust because they are often overvalued early in the year when expectations are still high. This year, Washington has struggled through injury and clubhouse rumor and innuendo to find themselves six games back of the NL East-leading Phillies and 4½-games back of the NL Wild Card with less than two months to go. It’s certainly not the spot oddsmakers had them pegged for when the Nats were the clear favorites to win their division (-125) with the Mets (+140), Braves (+800) and Phillies (+1800) all pulling up the rear. With all that said, it appears that the Nationals' stock is now trading much lower than it should be, as they were a 9-1 shot to win the World Series before the first pitch was thrown and now they are 25-1 or better at most outfits. Although the Nats have been inconsistent at best this season, they still have a top 10 OPS at home (.777) and are always a threat to post a crooked number at Nationals Park.

Recent history can poison the market’s mind, which makes today’s contest with the Braves a prime target after the Nats blew another quality start by Max Scherzer and coughed up a slim 1-0 nothing lead late to fall to Atlanta 3-1. Injuries in the rotation have forced the Nats to dig deep for starting pitching, which brings us to Tommy Milone (LHP), who Washington picked up off the scrap heap after he had a brutal 2017. The 31-year-old has been more than serviceable in his first two starts of 2018. Milone has struck out 15 batters in 12 innings. His 3.00 ERA is good on its own, but when you consider his xERA is 2.02, his impact has been even greater. Now we're not saying he should replace Stephen Strasburg or anything, but it appears the bone spurs that were bothering him last season are no longer an issue. It’s not like Milone has come out of nowhere either, as he posted 20 starts in Triple-A Syracuse before getting the call-up. His 113 Ks in 109 innings and a xERA that was lower than his surface number help support the quality stats he’s put up over a small sample size in the bigs.

Enter Mike Foltynewicz (RHP), who has to have the Nats licking their chops, as this will be the fifth time they have seen the Braves’ righty this season. Folty’s surface stats are good on paper, but he’s given up the fifth most hits per nine among National League starters at nearly seven. In his last start against the Nationals, Foltynewicz was cracked for nine hits over 5.2 frames. Foltynewicz has been getting walloped lately and Washington’s left-handed bats pose a real problem. Based on preseason expectations, the Braves are way ahead of schedule, but more importantly, the Nats have seen Folty’s act four times this year already, they hit him hard last time out and they figure to square up on him again here.

PLEASE NOTE: One of the unique things about our website is that we provide write-ups every single day on every game we post. We’re not sure if everyone understands how time consuming that is and how difficult it is as well but if you do not, please try it one day and you’ll see.

That said, we’re not going to change that. We’ll have write-ups every single day like we always do but we’re also going to have another feature. You see, we post our games usually in the early afternoon or before 1:00 PM EST but there is a lot of movement and other intangibles that occur throughout the day that has influence on what we’re betting. Usually after 6:00 PM EST or thereabouts, we’re going to be adding other games that we’re betting on in a section called “add-ons” for today that we ARE NOT going to write up because it’s too time consuming and with an hour or less before the first game goes off, we just won’t have the time.

This is a feature that you will see on our home page with the other wagers and we’ll also tweet it out when our add-ons have been posted.

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