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MLB Betting Guide: Friday 8/17/18

Even with Max Scherzer on the mound tonight, can the Washington Nationals score enough runs against a struggling Dan Straily to hit the over in Friday's matchup against the Marlins?

numberFire has built comprehensive algorithms to pinpoint the bets with the highest probability of returning money, whether you are betting on the total, a line, or moneyline. For those new to numberFire, we use a five-star system to show which bets you should be targeting on any given night. Stars represent how much you should risk on a wager relative to what you would normally bet.

For example, if you would normally bet $110 to win $100 on a -110 spread wager, if we give a 3-star ranking, we suggest risking three times that amount: $330 to win $300.

Using our models as a guide, let's take a look at the best bets for today.

Please note that lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. Please check here to make sure you're seeing the most updated information.

Miami Marlins at Washington Nationals

Over 8.0 (-123): 2-Star Rating out of 5

It's always easy to cower from the over when Max Scherzer is on the mound. Nobody would blame one for doing so. Scherzer leads the National League in wins, WHIP, strikeouts, innings pitched, and is second in ERA. He's dominant. You get that.

Of course, he's only one of two pitchers on the field. Dan Straily will take the mound for the Miami Marlins tonight as they try to push the Washington Nationals back below .500. From June 25 through June 20, Straily had a string of five quality starts in a row. Since then, however, he's taken a big step back.

In his subsequent four starts, Straily has given up 16 runs in just 19 1/3 innings. He's failed to make it out of the fifth inning twice in that span. It's hardly a surprise, then, that our models project him for the third-lowest FanDuel output among starting pitchers on tonight's slate.

The division rivals have combined to average a robust 11.09 runs per game when they've met this season. That jumps to a ridiculous 16.25 runs in the four games played at Nationals Park.

While we don't project the Marlins and Nats to combine for that many runs tonight, we do project them to score 9.51 runs, well higher than tonight's 8.0 total. We give the over a 58.33% chance of hitting and mark it as a two-star play.

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