Under Is The Only Way To Look On Getaway Day

Nationals vs. Dodgers, 4:10 ET

Getaway day is always interesting to me. With the holiday on Monday, my whole week has been thrown off. I always wonder if that is the same for athletes or it doesn't matter because they just are playing the game and it doesn't much matter if the day is a holiday or not. This three-game set comes to an end today as the Nationals take on the Dodgers.

I have to give the Nationals a tip of the cap at the very least. At this point, the Nationals know what is going to happen with this season. They won't make the playoffs, and they are most likely to trade away anyone that they can at the trade deadline. However, I have to give them some credit, they are only nine games under .500. I expected them to be closer to the level of the Athletics than I did them to be the level of the Phillies, Marlins, and Mets. The Dodgers started this season pretty rough, but they've been solid since that start. Now 12 games over .500, they are starting to look like the Dodgers of previous years. They are being chased by the Diamondbacks, but I think they are still going to end up winning the division. They have the best run differential in the National League and the third-best in the entire MLB.

He may not be worth the money, but Patrick Corbin has pitched better lately for the Nationals. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

For a few years, the easiest bet in baseball was to take the opposing team against Patrick Corbin with the team total going over, or the run line, or basically anything that would fade Corbin. But, I need to give the guy a bit of credit as he's actually been pretty solid this season. Before a tough start against the Royals in his last outing, he was able to put together a string of six of seven quality starts, and he didn't allow more than three earned runs in any of the starts. If you've followed me at all, you probably know the only time that I like the Dodgers starter, Noah Syndergaard, is when he is at home - specifically Los Angeles. Something about that city seems to bring out his best pitching. He has a 3.62 ERA in home starts this year and a 9.90 ERA on the road this season. Nationals hitters faced him a bit last year when he was on the Phillies, and they've been decently successful, but none of those at-bats came in Los Angeles.

I think this game has too high of a total. The Dodgers can explode offensively on any given day, and Corbin could of course have a meltdown as he did against the Royals. I am thinking this is a decent opportunity for both pitchers though and expect this to go under the 9.5 total. I'll back that and hope that both can turn in reasonable starts for us to cash this one that I think should be listed at a 9 or 8.5.

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