This is a 10* play on WASHINGTON

Washington had been red hot before running into Atlanta last weekend. They lost three of four games in that series, all but cooking their chances of catching the Braves in the NL East. Still, they're in the driver's seat for the Wild Card, but losing 5-0 to the Twins Tuesday night certainly didn't help the cause. We look for the Nationals to bounce back from that defeat as they send Stephen Strasburg to the mound tonight. Strasburg has been quite good of late, no surprise there. He has allowed a total of just five runs in his last four starts, which have spanned 27 innings. He didn't allow any runs in two of the four. Note that Minnesota was scoreless until the 7th inning last night and didn't even get a hit until the 5th. So this matchup sets up well for Strasburg. He's being opposed here by Martin Perez and unlike Jose Berrios last night, we don't feel Perez is up to the challenge. He did pitch shockingly well vs. Boston last week. But in his start before that one, he was tagged for eight runs by Detroit. Minnesota is only hitting .199 over the past week and that's a problem when facing Strasburg. Play on WASHINGTON

AAA