The Pittsburgh Pirates will play the Washington Nationals in Game 3 of their series at Nationals Park on Wednesday afternoon.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are 29-45 this season and have lost five games in a row. Pittsburgh has lost the first two games of this series by scores of 3-2 and 3-1. The Pittsburgh pitching staff has a 4.53 ERA, a 1.40 WHIP, and a .251 opponent batting average this season. The Pirates offense has scored 266 runs with a .219 batting average and a .287 on base percentage. Bryan Reynolds is batting .252 with 12 home runs and 25 RBI’s for the Pirates this season. The projected starter for Pittsburgh is Mitch Keller, who is 2-5 with a 4.77 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP over 66 innings pitched this season.
The Washington Nationals are 29-48 this season and have won four of their last five games. Prior to winning the first two games of this series, Washington won two out of the three games played against Texas. The Washington pitching staff has a 5.06 ERA, a 1.47 WHIP, and a .268 opponent batting average. The Nationals offense has scored 308 runs with a .252 batting average and a .319 on base percentage this year. Josh Bell is batting .311 with 11 home runs and 46 RBI’s for the Nationals this season. The projected starter for Washington is Paolo Espino, who is 0-1 with a 2.21 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP over 40.2 innings pitched this season.
Pittsburgh is 5-18 in their last 23 games and 0-7 in their last 7 games against the NL East. The over is 4-1 in Pittsburgh’s last 5 Wednesday games. Washington is 4-1 in their last 5 games and 8-1 in their last 9 games against the NL Central. The under is 7-1 in Washington’s last 8 games. The under is 7-1 in these two teams last 8 head to head meetings in Washington.
The first two games of this series have been low scoring, with Washington winning them both. Pittsburgh will look to bounce back with Mitch Keller on the mound. Keller has been solid in recent starts, allowing nine runs in his last 27.1 innings pitched. For Washington, Paolo Espino has mostly been used out of the bullpen, but has allowed four earned runs over his last three starts (14 innings). I like the under in this matchup once again with two pitchers that are trending in the right direction.