San Diego Padres vs. Washington Nationals MLB Picks, Odds, Predictions 7/16/2021

The San Diego Padres and the Washington Nationals meet in MLB action from Nationals Park on Friday.

The San Diego Padres will look to keep rolling along in the second half, sitting at 53-40 on the year, six games back of the Giants in the NL West race. Fernando Tatis Jr. leads the Padres, batting .286 with a team-high 28 home runs and 60 RBIs, sharing the team lead with Manny Machado in that regard. Tatis Jr. also leads the Padres with 88 strikeouts on the year while Jake Cronenworth has a team-high 94 hits and 20 doubles with 3 triples this season. Chris Paddack will get the nod for the Padres on the mound in this one and is 4-6 with a 5.38 ERA and 81 strikeouts this season. This will be Paddack’s second career start against the Nationals.

The Washington Nationals need to start winning games in a hurry if they’re going to make up ground in the NL East division race, sitting at 42-47, also 6 games back of the division lead. Trea Turner leads the Nats with a .318 batting average and 110 hits while Starlin Castro has a team-high 20 doubles and Kyle Schwarber leads Washington with 25 home runs and 53 RBIs on the year. Schwarber, like his power counterpart for San Diego in Tatis Jr., leads the Nationals with 88 strikeouts this season. Erick Fedde is expected to get the nod here and is 4-6 with a 4.59 ERA and 59 strikeouts this season. in his career, Fedde is 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA and 16 strikeouts this season.

San Diego is 20-6 in their last 26 Friday games and 14-6 in their last 20 games as a favorite while the over is 5-0 in their last 5 games against the NL East. Washington is 0-4 in their last 4 games overall and 0-4 in their last 4 games against the NL West while the under is 11-2 in their last 13 games as a home underdog. The over is 4-0 in the last 4 meetings between these two teams.

This has been a tough game to try to figure out, as Paddack’s the more likely pitcher of the two to get the win with the hotter Padres lineup behind him, but Paddack allowed nine runs in two innings in his lone start against the Nationals. On the other hand, Fedde’s struggled in his starts against the Padres and I don’t seem him faring well against the opposition in this one either. Instead, I’m going to side with the over as I see both starters getting batted around a fair bit here and for the offense to come out hot right out of the gate.