Atlanta Braves at Los Angeles Dodgers Preview: On the road again

After taking their series against the San Diego Padres last night, the Atlanta Braves head out of Turner Field and Atlanta to start an eight game road trip out west. That starts tonight against the Los Angeles Dodgers who are 59-47 and two games ahead of the Giants for first place in the NL West.

We’re going to jump right in to tonight’s pitching matchup:

The Pitching Matchup:

Aaron Harang has continued to overachieve with the Braves so far this season, and after 21 starts and 130.1 innings, he’s got a 3.31 ERA. Couple that with solid yet unspectacular peripherals (3.49 FIP, 4.14 xFIP, 7.18 K/9, 3.38 BB/9) and the Braves have a pretty reliable middle/back-of-the-rotation starter in Harang. His last outing was a seven-inning effort against the Marlins where he allowed just two runs on seven hits while striking out five and walking two.

Josh Beckett has had a pretty remarkable season in his own right for the Dodgers, somehow managing a 2.52 ERA with a 4.14 FIP. Even his xFIP (3.63) shows that he’s been a bit lucky, but he’s striking out a lot of batters (8.30 per nine) and limiting the walks (2.68 per nine) so he’s clearly been doing something right. The big factor here might just be the career-low BABIP he’s allowing: .237.

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The Particulars:

Date: July 29, 2014

Start Time: 10:10 pm ET

TV Channel: SportSouth, MLB Network (National)

Radio: 680 AM/106.7 FM (Local in Atlanta), Full list of Local Affiliates

Live Stream: MLB.tv (Click Here, $)

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The Predictions:

Both myself and fellow Editor Brad Rowland nailed our predictions yesterday when we took Ervin Santana and the Braves over converted outfielder Jason Lane (who actually pitched pretty well).

Here’s what our records look like at the moment:

• Carlos: 2-1
• Brad: 1-2

Today, Brad is going to buck his trend of picking the Braves and side with Beckett and I’m going to do the same. Don’t look too much into the fact that I’ve sided with Brad every single time since I took the lead after the first game.

Please feel free to sound off in the comments with your predictions for the game and feel free to rub it in our faces when you beat us on twitter (@ATLBeatBlog).