The Washington Nationals and San Francisco Giants are a couple of division leaders who would be meeting in the first round of the playoffs if the season ended today. They are also facing challenges from the teams underneath them, so this four-game series between them is very critical. On Friday night they will play the second game of this series at AT&T Park, with a starting time of 10:15 PM ET. And remember that BetAnySports customers can get the best of everything, as they not only get reduced juice before the game, but the option of being able to place wagers while the action is happening, with the state-of-the-art software from Live Betting Ultra.

The Nationals have obviously been propelled by outstanding pitching, and one of those hurlers, former Cy Young winner Max Scherzer, takes the mound for them, carrying a 10-6 record and 2.92 ERA into the proceedings. For the Giants it's Jeff Samardzija (9-6, 4.22 ERA), who hasn't shown good form of late.

On Thursday night the Nats reached Johnny Cueto early for three runs and got an excellent start out of Tanner Roark to beat the Giants 4-2. Thus, Washington is now 5.5 games head of the Miami Marlins, who lost to St. Louis. They are 60-42 on the season. The Giants are now 59-43, and they lost a half-game to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were idle. They are now just two games ahead in the National League West.

San Francisco continues with its offensive woes. The Giants have now scored two runs or less in six of their last nine games.

In the baseball odds posted at BetAnySports on this game, the Nationals are the road favorites with their star pitcher: 

Washington Nationals (Scherzer - R) -158
San Francisco Giants (Samardzija - R) +148

Over 7 Runs -115
Under 7 Runs -105

Nationals -1.5 Runs +100
Giants +1.5 Runs -120

There are still some things that are not exactly in place for the Nats. Bryce Harper, last year's MVP, went into last night's game hitting just .188 over the previous 30 days, and he went 0-for-4 on Thursday. He's now at .237. Daniel Murphy, the National League's leading hitter, was 0-for-3 to drop to .351. Second baseman Joe Panik, who had sat out 23 games with a concussion, came back to the lineup for the Giants and he was hitless in four at bats. In fact, most people were hitless for the Giants on Thursday, as they had only five base hits on the evening.

Scherzer is among the league leaders in a number of different categories, including Wins Above Replacement (4th), WHIP ratio (2nd to Clayton Kershaw) and strikeouts (1st). On the other side of things, he has given up 22 homers, which ties him for the league lead. He would seem to be the kind of pitcher who could overpower the Giants at this time. In each of the last three seasons he has finished in the top five of the Cy Young balloting, including a win of the award in 2013, when he was with the Tigers.

Samardzija led the American League in hits, earned runs and home runs allowed while a member of the Chicago White Sox. He has cut down on those numbers, but his strikeout-to-walk ratio is about the same. In his last 33-1/3 innings (six starts), he has allowed 27 earned runs (7.30 ERA). In his last three starts, Scherzer has allowed three earned runs and 13 hits in 21 innings, with 26 strikeouts.

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