Weather permitting, the Washington Nationals should have the final game of this three-game season opening series against the Marlins. Gio Gonzalez was born almost 32 years ago in Hialeah, Florida which is just north of Miami Beach. It was rumored before the 2016 season that the Miami Marlins and the Nationals had trade talks involving Gio Gonzalez although obviously nothing was consummated because Gio Gonzalez is still with the Washington Nationals and once again pitching against his hometown team.
The Nationals get to face Bryce Harper’s favorite opposing pitcher, Tom Koehler, who Harper has hit six career home runs against which is the most home runs that Harper has hit versus any opposing pitcher, one ahead of Julio Teheran.
Photo by Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports
Tom Koehler is well aware of what Bryce Harper has done against him, and Koehler chalks that up to not hitting his spots.
“[Bryce Harper] did a great job of when I threw a mistake, taking care of it,” Tom Koehler said. “I made three mistakes against him and he hit the ball hard three times for homers.”
That was Tom Koehler admitting to issues he had on May 6th of 2015 when Harper hit three home runs in one game against him. They say the first part of overcoming your issues is to admit you have issues. It didn’t seem to work for Koehler as Harper hit a home run off of him in April of last year. You have to wonder if that was a mistake pitch also or should we just give a tiny bit of credit to Harper that he hits home runs that were not mistake pitches?
The Nats betting lines for today’s game are up and moving and if you ever go to live betting lines at SportsBetting.ag , they do baseball. They have today’s Gio and Koehler lines up and moving based on today’s lineup.
Ryan Zimmerman has three home runs against Tom Koehler, Jayson Werth has two, and Daniel Murphy and Adam Eaton each have a home run against Koehler.
Here are the match-ups against the Marlins starter right-handed Tom Koehler:
Miami Marlins and Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, DC
1st Pitch: 4:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN, Fox Sports Florida, MLB.TV
Line-ups (subject to change without notice):
- Trea Turner SS
- Adam Eaton CF
- Bryce Harper RF
- Daniel Murphy 2B
- Ryan Zimmerman 1B
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Jayson Werth LF
- Matt Wieters C
- Gio Gonzalez LHP
