The Atlanta Braves are scratching their way for a last chance at competing for the National League East race. This week’s series haven’t been that great for the Atlanta Braves at Washington Nationals, losing two more straight in their bad streak of 7 of the last 10 games. Not that the Nationals have been awesome, however good enough to maintain a steady lead of 9 games over Atlanta. The Braves are still looking to get their “out of jail free” card with only 1.5 games to go but that will take much more than just tossing the dice. Getting straight wins will require more than just a push. On the other hand, Washington just needs to keep business as usual and avoid any losing streaks to achieve that longed divisional title.
Atlanta is looking at boosting up this game plan with their starting pitcher Aaron Harang, who by the way is having a regular season, nothing extraordinary from this right hander (3.87 overall ERA and 4.17 road ERA). These numbers aside, he has been meeting his responsibilities as an “innings eater”. With a less than regular season, the Braves are looking to improve their stats with the series against Texas coming soon. They are not entirely out of the race seeing that they still stand a chance in the next three games at Washington Nationals, which all need to be won. Time will tell if they will be able to avoid any more bad news and get some positive numbers over the Nationals.
On the other side of the road is Washington who are looking to get Atlanta off the table with Stephen Strasburg who also isn’t having a great year (3.43 ERA overall, at home with a 2.60 ERA). He has seen trouble against the Braves, his team is 5-10 against Atlanta when he starts, with a 4.62 ERA. We could see some good outcomes from the Nationals with Strasburg since he is coming from two positive starts with only one earned run per game. The Nationals numbers with Strasburg are 16 out of 30 starts overall.
