Sports betting enthusiasts will remember the fanfare in which the Cubs brought Sweet Lou Piniella to town just prior to the 2007 season. In his first two seasons, Lou took his team to the playoffs. Last season he came oh so close but just missed the NL wild card berth. This year the Cubs are awful. Lou has had enough. He didn’t even wait until the season was over, he quit last week.
As NFL betting and NCAA football betting are getting ramped up, the Washington Nationals are once again getting swept under the carpet in the Washington, DC. Not only are the Nationals fading into obscurity again in Washington, but they are quickly extinguishing the flames of hope that they fanned so early in the season.
Pitching sensation Stephen Strasburg was supposed to be the second coming of Ronald Reagan in Washington, DC. He was going to raise the Nationals from the dead and make them contenders. He was going to be the catalyst that built a winning baseball team in a town infatuated with its football and hockey teams. He was going to be the future of the Nationals.
Strasburg may very well still be the future of the Washington Nationals, but the Nationals will spend the next couple of seasons paying for their very bad decision to rush Strasburg into the lineup rather than getting him much-needed experience in AAA ball. First Strasburg was benched due to exhaustion. He had never played so much in his career before. He would have gotten that experience in AAA. Then he hurt his shoulder because of fatigue from pitching, and now he is out for the season with an injured wrist. The Nationals are back to square one.
The Cubs watched years of hopes and dreams drift away again as not even Sweet Lou could save the team this season. The MLB betting world watched as the Cubs sank to their current place in the NL Central standings which is 21 and half games back of the lead. The Cubs are out of the pennant race, out of the NL wild card race and now they are without their manager.
This game is a battle between two teams that are desperately trying to establish direction. The Cubs will be sending veteran pitcher Carlos Zambrano to the mound with his 4-6 record and 4.97 ERA. The Nationals will put John Lannan on the mound. Lannan has showed potential all season long. His record is 5-5 and his ERA is 5.13. In his last start he held the NL East leading Atlanta Braves scoreless for five innings and eventually got the win.
It is hoped that both the Cubs and the Nationals have learned from their past mistakes. This game will feature players auditioning to play in MLB next season. Some will be back with the Cubs and the Nationals, some will not. But whatever the Cubs and Nationals do in the off-season, it needs to point towards a more defined and positive direction for both teams.
Pick: Washington Nationals 4-1