Rangers vs. Nationals: Key Insights & Game Preview

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00:001.35 p.m. Eastern. That's 9.77, 9.78 on the rotation. That's Texas and it's Washington.

00:05It's the Rangers, rest of the Nationals. Lats, the lefty. Again, not too much here on this season

00:10for Lats at the lefty and the pitcher. Trevor Williams, we know him, has been around the block,

00:14your average pitcher of Major League Baseball. Opened up as eight and a half as a total. Most

00:18outlets at eight and a half. Some starting to shift over to some nines here. The favorite on

00:22the board overnight was Texas around that minus 140 price. Most outlets have dipped back just a

00:27little bit, Tom. Minus 135s and minus 130s here. So a little bit more action coming into

00:32Washington at home going against Lats and the Rangers. Yeah, so there's a lot of rain potential

00:38in this game. So that's first and foremost. If you're betting on it, understand that there

00:41could be a delay prior to the game. That's as far as I'm seeing. You know, I think the

00:47Rangers lineup has been pretty terrible over the past few weeks. Like this is not an offense.

00:52It was an offense that I wanted to buy into coming into the season, but they really haven't

00:56done so. So if I had to pick from this game, I would choose the Nationals money line. This

01:01is not to say I don't like any Rangers hitters today, which I certainly do. When it comes

01:05to Lats, the pitcher, he doesn't have a big sample size this year, but if we look back

01:07to last year, a 20.8% strike rate, a 14% walk rate is absolutely terrible. He had a 520

01:14XFIP, not something that we're worried about. Fly balls up at 45%, only 33% hard contact rate.

01:20But on the other side for Trevor Williams, you know, pitcher that I've never been super fond

01:24of across the league. He doesn't strike out hitters, 17% strike rate. His walks are lower

01:29this year at 6.1%. But when it comes to the Babbitt and just letting balls in play, I think

01:34that this is the spot to attack specifically versus lefties. And Josh Smith is at the top

01:39of my list for the Rangers today coming in. He's not going to have a ton of power, but

01:43when we look to him overall, 307 Woba since the beginning of May, the strikeouts are down

01:47at 13.3% and 5.8% walk rate. So put the ball in play, get on base, grab me a hit.