The Atlanta Braves will play the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 3 of their series at Citizens Bank Park on Friday afternoon. The series is tied 1-1.
The Atlanta Braves were 101-61 in the regular season, but have lost three of their last five games. Atlanta won Game 2 of this series by a score of 3-0 on Wednesday. The Atlanta pitching staff has a 2.50 ERA, a 1.00 WHIP, and a .227 opponent batting average this postseason. The Braves offense has scored nine runs with a .206 batting average and a .315 on base percentage. Matt Olson is batting .500 with one home run and 4 RBI’s for the Braves this postseason. The projected starter for Atlanta is Charlie Morton, who was 9-6 with a 4.34 ERA and a 1.23 WHIP over 172 innings pitched in the regular season.
The Philadelphia Phillies were 87-75 during the regular season and have won three of their last four games. Philadelphia defeated the Cardinals in two games to advance out of the Wild Card round. The Phillies won Game 1 of this series by a score of 7-6 on Tuesday. The Philadelphia pitching staff has a 3.09 ERA, a 1.11 WHIP, and a .195 opponent batting average. The Phillies offense has scored 15 runs with a .195 batting average and a .270 on base percentage this postseason. Bryce Harper is batting .429 with one home run and one RBI for the Phillies this postseason. The projected starter for Philadelphia is Aaron Nola, who threw 6.2 innings of shutout baseball against the Cardinals in the Wild Card round.
Atlanta is 4-1 in their last 5 Divisional playoff games and 37-16 in their last 53 Friday games. The under is 6-2-1 in Atlanta’s last 9 playoff games. Philadelphia is 4-1 in their last 5 Friday games and 16-7 in their last 23 home playoff games. The over is 6-2 in Philadelphia’s last 8 home games. The over is 4-1 in these two teams last 5 head to head meetings.
This is a massive Game 3 between two really good NL East teams. Atlanta had a great pitching performance to even the series in Game 2 and will turn to Charlie Morton here. Morton has allowed nine earned runs over his last 9 innings pitched for the Braves. For the Phillies, Aaron Nola pitched very well in the Wild Card round and has allowed one earned run or fewer in five out of his last seven starts. I think we are going to see some offense in this game and I like the over.