Game 4 of the MLB National League Division Series gets underway at Wrigley Field in Chicago and the Cubs are just a win away from moving on to the National League Championship series to face the LA Dodgers. For the Cubs, a win tonight will send them to their third straight NLCS in three years with the chance to repeat as World Series Champions further down the road.
Roark vs Arrieta
A lot will be on the shoulders of these two men tonight, as Tanner Roark of the Nationals takes on Jake Arrieta of the Cubs. Both men are big right-handed pitchers with roughly the same amount of strikeouts to their names, but Arrieta is coming off an injury so the advantage might be with Roark. Arrieta is 14-10, while Roark is 13-11, again showing just how similar these guys are.
The Nationals' season is on the line and they will be looking for a repeat of Game 2, in which they scored 6 to tie the series at 1. In Game 3, the Nationals got unlucky and it was really anyone's ball-game. A different bounce here, a gust of wind there and it would be an entirely different situation; but that is the game. Losing 2-1 in Game 3 was not something that the Nationals wanted, but coming back tonight will not be a miracle. "We've won two games in a row before; it's not a record," said Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals third baseman.
MLB Betting Markets
If you have been following the MLB playoffs then you'll know that it is nothing like the regular season. The sometimes "slow" game of Baseball takes on a different kind of beast on the way to the Fall Classic. This makes the playoffs the perfect time to make a bet. bet365 Sports has posted odds in favor of the Cubs at 1.66, while the Nationals trail slightly at 2.30.