The set up: Washington has scored 24 runs while pounding out 34 hits in winning the first two games of this three-game series at Arizona. Ryan Zimmerman has not played the last two games after being hit in the left wrist by a pitch in the ninth inning of Sunday's game in San Francisco and the struggling Bryce Harper (7-for-59 since July 10) was a late scratch because of illness on Tuesday. The Nats have cruised over the D'backs, who have now lost 11 of their last 14 games and the team's 43-64 record is worse than any team in the NL other than the Atlanta Braves (37-69).

Pitching match-up: Max Scherzer (11-6, 2.85 ERA) takes the mound for Washington Wednesday afternoon, as the Nats look to sweep the D'backs. Arizona counters with Zack Godley (3-1, 5.63 ERA). Scherzer's ERA stood at 4.05 at the end of May but as the calendar turns to August, it's down to 2.85. He's 6-2 with a 1.67 ERA over his last 11 starts and owns a 1.09 ERA with a 49-9 KW ratio over his last six starts. Scherzer is 7-4 with a 2.92 ERA and 0.97 WHIP in 13 road starts this season and against the team which drafted him with its first pick of the 2006 draft (before being traded to Detroit), he's 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA in three starts vs the D'backs (teams are 3-0). Godley's appeared in only nine games in 2016 (five starts) and is in the rotation now only because Zack Greinke is on the DL (oblique). He's 2-1 in that four-start span (team is 2-2) but it's hard to ignore his 6.23 ERA in that stretch, allowing 28 hits in 21 2/3 innings and lasting as many as six innings just ONE time.

The pick: Not a single reason to support the D'backs in this one, a team which is a woeful 17-37 at home this season (owns a MLB-worst minus-$2613 home moneyline mark), having allowed 84 runs its last 10 games at Chase Field (that's over EIGHT runs per game). Lay the 1 1/2 runs with the Nats for an 8* play.