Nelly’s is 4-1 the past five days in MLB while 11-5 in Interleague picks this season! Check out Wednesday’s pick:
#919 Washington Nationals (Irvin) +120 over Detroit Tigers (Olson) 5:40 PM CT
Washington has won four games in a row to reach 30-35 as the Nationals continue to compete better than most expected. The pitching staff has a poor reputation but has posted similar numbers to Detroit this season, including featuring a slightly better bullpen. Jake Irvin has a 3.12 ERA with a 3.15 FIP this season with excellent walk and home run rates in 75 innings of work. Irvin has a 2.68 ERA in 47 road innings this season and he has been on a great run since late April with eight starts in a row allowing five or fewer hits and two or fewer earned runs while pitching at least five innings. Reese Olson hasn’t pitched that poorly, but Detroit is 2-10 in his starts this season. Olson showed flashes of greatness as a rookie last season, but his strikeout rate has dropped to below 8.0 K/9 this season and his recent form has been rough, allowing 18 hits and 13 runs in his last two starts. Detroit has slipped back below .500 with losses in four of the past five games and the Tigers offense has failed to top four runs in eight of the past 10 games. Over the past 10 games the Tigers are batting just .193 vs. right-handers, while scoring nearly a run less per nine than the Nationals. Washington won 5-4 last night on the road in 10 innings even while going hitless with runners in scoring position in a game Detroit needed to use six pitchers. Detroit is hard to justify with this type of favoritism with similar numbers between these starters as Washington has been in better recent form statistically almost across the board.