#901/902 ASA TOP PLAY 10* ON Under 8 Runs – Washington vs Atlanta, Tuesday at 4 PM ET – The Braves are starting Drew Smyly in this one and he wrapped up last season striking out 38 over his final 22 innings. When he is "on" he is a crafty lefty and he should hold a couple key edges here. One is that he has spent most of his career in the American League so the Nationals have very little experience against him. Another reason the Washington hitters will be at a disadvantage in this one is that the covid protocols delayed their season up to this point. So no game action since spring training ended over a week ago. Essentially the Nats were handed an unwanted week off right at the beginning of the new season. The pitchers are set to dominate in this one because Max Scherzer takes the mound for the Nationals. He piled up 20 strikeouts and held batters to a .180 batting average in his spring training starts as he compiled 13.2 innings. Scherzer has allowed 2 earned runs or less in his first start of a year in 6 of the last 7 seasons. In fact, in those 6 starts he has allowed a total of only 6 earned runs or an average of 1 per game. Considering one of the Braves strengths this season is the bullpen and the fact that the Nationals have solid late-inning arms in the bullpen and Scherzer can work deep into this game, there is likely to be very little scoring in this one. The Nats bats haven't seen game action in over a week and the Braves bats were stifled in their season opening series. Atlanta was held to just 3 runs total in their 3-game season opening series at Philly. The average score of the 3 games was Phillies 3, Braves 1 and we expect this one to get to no more than 5 or 6 runs at best. Take the UNDER.