It's Sunday Night Baseball with a flair when the Philadelphia Phillies get set to close a series with the Washington Nationals. The pair will meet in legendary Williamsport, Pennsylvania, as a part of the MLB Little League Classic.
The Phillies throttled the Nats last night by a score of 12-3. It was a rebound from the night before, where they lost by a score of 8-7. Philadelphia is in the midst of a heated playoff chase, and for the moment, they have a leg up on the closest competitors. The Phillies are atop the three wild card spots in the National League with a 3.5-game lead over the holders of the final spot in the Chicago Cubs.
For the Nationals, it's long been another rebuilding year. With that said, Washington has managed to win six of its last 10 games.
Read on for my best bet and full MLB picks and predictions for Phillies vs. Nationals on Sunday, August 20.
Phillies vs Nationals odds
Phillies vs Nationals predictions
Trevor Williams will take the mound tonight for the Nationals and hasn't won a start since July 2.
He's playing some of his worst baseball of the entire year, as he's allowed four or more earned runs in four consecutive starts, most of which haven't gotten to five innings. Williams is tasked with facing a Phillies team that is seemingly rounding into form. In the most general of terms, they have played much better baseball lately and looked poised to start the postseason strong. These two contributing factors make up a massive part of my best bet tonight: Phillies -1.5 at -130 over at FanDuel.
The biggest story for Williams' struggles this season has simply been giving up too many hits. He needs to avoid more bats in whatever way you'd like to slice it. There's a whiff rate in the Bottom 8% of baseball, an expected batting average at the near bottom of the league, and an elevated slugging percentage of .499. Earlier in his career, Williams got by with being a strong ground ball-inducing pitcher. As the years have passed, that has begun to elude him, and he's posted a rate of 38% this season.
Where the Phillies will be able to take advantage of Williams tonight is against his fastballs. It's a pitch he throws over 46% of the time and is the lead pitch in his throwing arsenal. That's problematic against this Phillies lineup.
You likely know about the prowess of bats like Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper against the heaters, but their numbers rise when facing a fastball-heavy pitcher as a team. They see jumps in virtually every metric, like slugging percentage, batting average, and, most importantly, BABIP. On this side of the mound, there's a natural strength on weakness, and it's not one I can see the Nationals overcoming.
On the other side of this matchup is veteran Zack Wheeler. He's had a strong season thus far, even if the metrics may be down against his historical ones. Oddly enough, Wheeler is a heavy fastball hurler, too, and unlike the Phillies, the fastball has been a pitch the Nationals have struggled against.
Depending on the lineup tonight, we could see only two Washington batters with a positive run value against the fastball. This lineup is filled with a significant amount of sluggers who struggle mightily against it, including CJ Abrams (.284 SLG).
My projections for this one were -132 for Phillies -1.5. With that in mind, I'm not seeing a massive numerical edge, but the handicap of the pitching mismatch tells it all. I love the Phillies in this spot.
My best bet: Phillies -1.5 (-130 at FanDuel)
Phillies vs Nationals same-game parlay
Phillies -1.5
Nick Castellanos to record an RBI
Stone Garrett Over 1.5 total bases
We're taking our best bet of the Phillies run line and pairing it with two solidly-lined props. We're getting a nice multiplier in the process, given that the two plays are non-correlated.
Leading things off alongside our best bet is Nick Castellanos to record an RBI. There are a few reasons why we like this.
He's surrounded by players that hit the fastball relatively well, and he hits it the best in the lineup with the highest hard-hit rate. Additionally, Castellanos has been rather hot lately. He's coming off a four-RBI performance last night, which gave him an RBI in three of his previous four games.
The last leg here is Stone Garrett to go over 1.5 bases for Washington. He's been on fire lately, going over this total in four of his previous five games, and we're getting him at plus money? Yes, please.
We've hammered home the aspect of the fastball in this one tonight, and Garrett has demolished them this season. He'll arrive at this one with a +8 run value against the four-seamer this year, and the highest slugging percentage against them in the lineup.
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Phillies vs Nationals moneyline and Over/Under analysis
As I mentioned, we're on the Phillies in this spot, happily grabbing the run line with such a decisive pitching advantage on the mound.
Philly has one of the better records in baseball as a home favorite this season, winning over 60% of the time. That number goes up against divisional opponents, where it's won 63% of its games this season – the second-best clip in the NL East.
In addition, two of the last three starts with Williams on the mound have been losses by more than one run, including a 10-5 loss against this same Phillies team a little over a week ago. The pitching mismatch is the main handicap, but those two aspects don't hurt things.
I don't have much of an opinion on tonight's total. We got a number of 8.5 slightly juiced to the Over, and that's nearly directly in line with my projections.
The Nationals will not have much success against Wheeler, given their issues against the fastball. So at that point, it comes down to figuring out if the Phillies can do enough heavy lifting themselves to push this one Over. Given the issues Williams has had much of the season, it's likely, and it follows the correlation of them winning by more than one run. However, I need more of an edge for me to play it.
There's not much of a strong trend here for a side on the total, either. The last 10 meetings between these two teams have gone Over at a 50% clip. With that said, though, four of Trevor Williams's previous five starts have all gone Over the posted total.
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Trend to know
Trevor Williams has given up four or more runs in four straight starts. Find more MLB betting trends for Phillies vs. Nationals
Phillies vs Nationals game info
| Location: | Bowman Field, Williamsport, PA |
| Date: | Sunday, August 20, 2023 |
| First pitch: | 7:10 p.m. ET |
| TV: | ESPN |
Starting pitchers
Zack Wheeler (9-5, 3.63 ERA): It's been a slight regression from the past two seasons for Zack Wheeler. That's not too shocking at age 33, either. However, all the metrics are solid, and Wheeler's game has no obvious noticeable issues. Maybe you'd like more swing-and-miss stuff, but he's more than made up for that with an average exit velocity that puts him near the Top 10% of baseball. All and all, Wheeler has been a model of consistency and, at his best, able to deliver a dominant performance. His previous start against the Toronto Blue Jays was one of those dominant ones when he went seven innings and allowed just one earned run.
Trevor Williams (5-7, 5.20 ERA): There are not many kind ways to put it for Trevor Williams; it just hasn't been a good season for the righty. Williams sits in the Top 30% of baseball in average exit velocity, and both his expected batting average and whiff rate are near the very bottom of the league. Williams enters this game off another rough start against the Oakland Athletics, when he gave five earned runs in just four innings.
