Originally posted on 06/20/2015:

​6/20
PIT Pirates @ WSH Nationals
Nationals ML -123

I've found several stats which lead me to taking these (on my standards) rather low odds:
- Since 2014 the Pirates are 5-11 in the second game of an away series when they lost the series-opener.
- Since 2014 the Pirates are 4-8 with Liriano as away dogs.
- Since 2014 the Pirates are 6-16 as away dogs when the opposing starter owns an ERA of lower than 3.50.
- Since 2014 the Pirates are 14-32 as away dogs when the opponent has a winning-record.
- Since 2014 the Pirates are 4-19 as away dogs in day-games.
- Liriano's teams are 2-6 over his career when he has thrown at least 100 pitches in each of his previous three starts.
- Since 2014 the Nationals are 15-3 at home in the 2nd game of the series when the visitors have a winning-record and the Nationals won the series-opener.
- Since 2014 the Nationals are 19-8 at home against LHP starters.
- Over his career Max Scherzer's teams are 28-8 at home when his previous start was a road-win.
- Since 2013 Max Scherzer's teams are 12-4 at home against visitors with a winning-record.
- Since June 2012 Max Scherzer's teams are 17-2 at home when he has thrown more than 110 pitches in his previous start.


Some other thoughts:
- The Nats should have gained confidence as they've started to hit again yesterday after some troublesome offensive outputs before.
- The Pirates had lots of trouble scoring over the last few games and their winning streak was mostly a product of excellent pitching.
- The Pirates send Liriano to the mound who has been on a roll with an ERA of 1.29 over his last 5 start, but he had a little bit of luck going against rather weak offensive lineups over this span (vs CHS - slumping / vs MIL - one of the worst offenses in the MLB / @ SFG - have offensive problems at AT&T / @ SD - lousy offense thusfar / vs NYM - much worse on the road than at home).


Enough? I think so. Let's do it Nats.