I'll bite on Roark and the Nats +125. He's been lights out while Weaver hasn't been so great 5.13/1.39 at home this season. Nats offense can't be held down forever.
Does Lester continue the post ASB implosion in PITT?
Im just getting a chance to start w games now so I’m not close to having a play yet, just wanted to talk bout weaver a little bit with ya.. true he has been disappointing this year cause he impressed me so much last year maybe unfairly I expected a lot out of him this season.
That said I think there some good about him that should be pointed out. Before we get into that I gotta talk bout the home numbers being worse. It is incredibly meaningless and more than anything happenstance of opponent and/or him just having his real bad blowup games at home for no other reason than not having it. He has had several big time performances against good offenses at home too, whatever your thoughts are on weaver (and trust me mine are not all good as you will read shortly! Lol) I just want to say I truly believe there nothing to the home thing other than coincidence of when his worst starts happened they were at home, no real reason to it (god knows im worng plenty but very confident in this).
4 of his last 6 starts have quality starts and the reason for that is he has been regaining control., im sure this true for most pitchers but seems particularly true for Luke, when he walks guys he tends to get beat up, when he doesn’t he generally has very good results. In those last 6 starts he didn’t walk anyone in 3 of them. His last bad start shildt yanked him so fast (rightfully so) he didn’t have a chance to walk more which he would have. The other bad he walked 5 against the cubs in a 4 inning stinker. Other than those 2 bad starts he has only walked 2 guys in 26 innings since start of July (a 8 inning gem then 3 other 6 inning starts allowing 1 or 2 runs in each). He has actually allowed a lower line drive rate this season and way higher infield pop out rate than last years very good second half. Point is he still has the potential and has shown plenty more flashes of being that quality starter recently so I think it a mistake to assume he is just gonna be bad cause of those home numbers..
Now to the bad and why nats could give him problems. How many lefty bats do bats have in lineup? (I havnt seem lineups yet) I feel like they do have ability to stack a lot of lefties, if so that could be a problem for him. Lefties have been a real headache for weaver this year after being very good against them last season (as in last year lefties had a ops under .600 and now this year it well over .800!!) and that could be cause his changeup been far less effective. He is actually dominating righties still this year only allowing a .657 ops after allowing .793 last year!!! I’m gonna have to look at how he been vs lefties during this better stretch and how many lefties he gonna have to deal with tonight (sorry this so choppy, I’m basically making notes to myself as capping as discuss with you! Lol)..
Something else to consider is even if weaver is bad, our new manager has shown a refreshing willingness to have a quick hook (very refreshing after years of watching matheny leave guys out there to get creamed!). And since Poncedeleon gave us those huge 3 innings in relief last night Shildt has our whole stable of young fire ballers at his disposal if in fact weaver struggles and he wants to keep us in it turning it into a pen game we have the rested arms to do it!!
Far as Roark goes he has pitched some good games of late but I’ve never been a believer and cards offense is really playing well right now. Even with weavers struggles this year Roark’s advanced metrics are pretty much identical to weavers! And let’s face it nats pen isn’t at its best right now, I’d argue cards have the advantage in the late innings especially considering cards pen basically got a day off yesterday.
As I said I have a lot of work to do before deciding if there a play for me to make on either side or the total. Your post was just 1st I read and since it pertained to the team I know best I thought it be cool to start a little discussion.