Pirates @ Braves Predictions: Take Pittsburgh in the Moneyline upset

Pittsburgh take on Atlanta tonight but does Zach Rainey see them coming away with the victory...?

For Pittsburgh Pirates fans, this next sentence will be a very familiar one. I haven’t seen much I like or that is even promising from the club so far this season.

Adam Frazier has been the bright spot for the club this season, hitting .325 while playing second base.

Outside of that, Colin Moran was hitting .297 before heading to the 10-day IL. Bryan Reynolds has been hitting .290 and is leading the team in doubles. However, the lineup dips horrendously after that. With three guys not even at the .220 mark.

Baseball has always proven to be a tricky sport to gamble on. Even the best teams lose games, and a lot of them compared to other sports.

In the last full season we had, the Houston Astros finished with a major league best 107-55 record. That would typically feel like a safe bet, until you have a parlay going and the Astros are the last leg of it and you just happened to get them on the wrong night. It’s infuriating. 55 losses on a season is still almost two full months of losses. You basically have to pick the winners on the right day.

That’s the reason I’m on Pittsburgh tonight.

Atlanta hasn’t really lit the world on fire this season either.

Ronald Acuna Jr. has been as advertised, but the rest of the team has fallen short.

Before landing on the IL, the Braves had high hopes for Travis d’Arnaud after hitting .321 in the abbreviated season. The same goes for Ozzie Albies. In his previous four years with the club, he’s hit .279 and shown solid power numbers, hitting 24 home runs twice. But his average has dipped to .224.

Freddie Freeman’s average has also taken a nosedive. From 2016-2020, Freeman hit .306 and hit 136 home runs. While his power numbers look the same his average sits at .227 entering Thursday’s contest.

My point of all this? In baseball, even the bad teams win one. Or as my father would say, even the blind squirrel finds the nut once in awhile. The price also factors in. For a team under .500, -186 seems steep for me to take the Braves here. Lets see if we can be the blind squirrel tonight and take the Pirates +170.

I’m also on the low strikeout total for Pittsburgh starter Wil Crowe. Let’s take under 3.5 strikeouts at +105 at 888Sport, BetRivers and Unibet.