Washington Nationals vs. Cincinnati Reds Betting Preview, Odds, Picks

Washington Nationals vs. Cincinnati Reds Betting Preview, Odds, Picks

Tyler Vaysman
2 years ago
2 min read
Washington Nationals vs. Cincinnati Reds Betting Preview, Odds, Picks

The Washington Nationals will be playing the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati at Great American Ballpark on Friday night at 7:10 pm EST. This will be game 2 of a 4 game series. The Nationals took game 1 in a close 3-2 win against the home team.

Cincinnati (78-75) has let their wild card hopes slip in the past few weeks. They have had their chances but now sit at 5.5 games out of the wild card with little hope of salvaging that last playoff spot. 

The Nationals (64-89) have officially been eliminated from playoff contention. They sit at the bottom of the NL East, 17 games back from the Braves.

The Reds are 3-7 in their past 10 games and the Nationals are an even 5-5. The Nationals don’t have much to play for, but Cincinnati will hope to get back on the right foot with a win on Friday night.

Odds

The Reds are a 1.5 point favorite in this game with odds of +105. The Nationals’ odds are -125 as a +1.5 spread. The over/under for the game is set at 9 total runs. The Moneyline to bet the Reds and the Nationals are -180 and +155, respectively.

Pitching Matchup

Sonny Gray of the Reds will face Paolo Espino of the Nationals. Gray has had a moderately successful year going 7-8 with a 3.84 ERA and 146 strikeouts. Espino has gone 5-5 with a similar ERA of 3.94 and 90 strikeouts

Sonny Gray picked up the loss last weekend in his last time out giving up 3 earned runs in 6 innings and striking out 5. Espino got the win against the Rockies pitching 5.2 innings giving up 0 runs with 7 strikeouts.

Wild Card Race

The Reds have their work cut out for them as they split their 2 games against the Pittsburgh Pirates earlier this week. Their 3rd game was rained out and postponed until next week. The last time the Reds have won a series was back in August which has not helped their ability to hold the last wild card spot.

Reds’ fans were waiting for the Reds to pull themselves out of this cold streak, but it never happened. I want to say that it may be too late with too many games to make up for the Reds to have a chance of getting into the playoffs, but anything can happen with September baseball.

If the Reds want a chance at making the playoffs, they need to be very close to perfect for the rest of the season. They will need to hope that the Cardinals start losing as they are playing well against the NL Central leading Brewers.

Expected Outcome

I think this should be a no-brainer that the Reds should win this game because they have much more to play for, but nothing is that simple for Cincinnati sports teams. Any fan knows this about Cincinnati sports, but we keep our faith in our teams and wait for them to prove us right. 

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