Fish floundering and in lousy betting situation

Both Atlanta and Florida are on the outer reaches of the race for the wild card chase, nevertheless, both still have a chance if they could put together a significant winning streak and Colorado would falter. The Braves have placed themselves in the better position having won the last two nights against the Marlins at Land Shark Stadium, leaving them three games behind the Rockies.

Atlanta (70-62, -3.5 units) is chasing first postseason berth in four years and have helped themselves immensely winning eight of last 11 games on the road, moving them to 35-32 on the season as visitor’s. The Braves are 19-9 after five or more consecutive road games this season and have named Javier Vazquez (11-9, 3.02 ERA) as starter, who will be seeking his fifth straight road win.

Atlanta has won Vazquez’s last five starts on the road and he is 7-2 with 2.96 ERA in Braves traveling uniforms and the linemakers at DiamondSportsbook.com have made this combination a -150 money line favorite.

Florida (68-64, +0.9 units) has been in a tailspin at just the wrong time, losing nine of last 13 games. The bats haven’t been able to keep up with the Florida weather and have averaged a cool four runs per game in the process, compared to 4.7 on the season.

The Marlins failed to take advantage of a favorable situation last night facing Tim Hudson, who was making his first start in 13 months after elbow surgery, but scored only two runs in 5 1/3 innings against him and three on the night in a frustrating 4-3 defeat.

Rich VandenHurk (2-2, 5.12) gets the ball for Florida after being a September call-up from the minors, having had success against the Braves with 2-0 record and 3.91 ERA in five lifetime starts. While that makes Fish fans hopeful, the fact remains VandenHurk was sent back down to the minors in mid-August after posting 7.98 ERA in three previous starts.

This leads to a potentially lucrative system for the baseball sports bettor that reads this way.

Play Against home underdogs with a money line of +125 to +175, who are average NL offensive team scoring 4.3 to 4.8 runs a game, against a good starting pitcher (ERA of 3.70 or less), after a loss by two runs or less.

Dating back to 1997, this superb system is 53-14, 79.1 percent, with the average margin of victory being 2.6 runs per game. This profitable system is enhanced with Vazquez and the Braves 13-3 as road favorite of -110 or higher. Consider this as potential play in Wednesday baseball action.