Understand the Game Breakdown: Athletics vs Nationals Head-to-Head Insights August 5th, 2025

Athletics

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Washington Nationals

On August 5, 2025, the Washington Nationals will host the Oakland Athletics at Nationals Park for the first game of their interleague series. Both teams are struggling this season, with the Nationals holding a record of 44-67 and the Athletics at 49-65. As the Nationals aim to turn their fortunes around, they will lean on MacKenzie Gore, who has had a decent season despite a challenging win-loss record of 4-11 and a solid 3.80 ERA.

In his last outing, Gore pitched an impressive complete game shutout, showcasing his potential against a struggling Athletics lineup. He projects to pitch around 5.6 innings today, allowing about 2.2 earned runs and striking out 7.0 batters on average, which bodes well considering the Athletics’ offense ranks just 7th in MLB.

The Athletics will counter with Luis Severino, who has struggled this season, posting a 5-11 record and a 4.83 ERA. While he has the potential to perform better with a FIP of 4.14, he projects to allow 3.1 earned runs over 5.6 innings and strike out only 4.4 batters. Given that the Nationals rank 4th in MLB for fewest strikeouts, they could find success against Severino’s low-strikeout approach.

Offensively, the Nationals rank 23rd in MLB while the Athletics boast a better ranking at 7th. However, the Nationals have shown some life recently, with their best hitter batting .412 over the last week, contributing significantly to the team’s performance. Meanwhile, the Athletics’ best hitter has also been productive, boasting a .429 batting average.

With the Nationals favored at -140, there’s a sense of optimism surrounding their ability to capitalize on their home field advantage and Gore’s recent form, making it an intriguing matchup.

Athletics Insights

• Luis Severino – Over/Under 4.5 Strikeouts (-110/-120)
  Luis Severino’s higher utilization percentage of his secondary pitches this season (51% compared to 39.7% last season) figures to work in his favor considering they are generally much more effective than fastballs.
  Explain: A pitcher who limits has fastball usage will instead heavily use change-ups, curveballs, sliders, etc. These are far more effective pitches at preventing runs and generating strikeouts.
• Nick Kurtz – Over/Under 1.5 Total Bases (+140/-180)
  The leading projection system (THE BAT X) estimates Nicholas Kurtz’s true offensive talent to be a .347, indicating that he has experienced some positive variance this year given the .082 deviation between that mark and his actual .429 wOBA.
  Explain: Players that are overperforming should be expected to play worse going forward, which can create value on prop Unders if the lines are too heavily weighing the lucky, to-date overperformance.
• Luis Urias – Over/Under Total Bases
  Luis Urias pulls many of his flyballs (36.6% — 94th percentile) and will have a big advantage hitting them towards the game’s 10th-shallowest LF fences in today’s game.
  Explain: This player’s skill set matches up particularly well with the park he’s in today, which may lead to better-than-usual performance.

Washington Nationals Insights

• MacKenzie Gore – Over/Under 6.5 Strikeouts (-140/+110)
  MacKenzie Gore’s fastball velocity has fallen 1.2 mph this season (94.7 mph) below where it was last season (95.9 mph).
  Explain: Velocity is a key component to fastball success in generating strikeouts and preventing runs, so a pitcher whose velocity decreases will likely see worse results.
• Josh Bell – Over/Under 1.5 Total Bases (+135/-180)
  In the last week’s worth of games, Josh Bell’s Barrel% has experienced a negative regression, plummeting from his seasonal rate of 10.5% down to 0%.
  Explain: Barrel% measures how often a player hits the ball at the optimal exit velocity and launch angle and is a terrific measure of underlying power.
• The Washington Nationals have 3 hitters in their projected batting order today with a high (i.e. over 27%) underlying K% (per the leading projection system, THE BAT X) (James Wood, Brady House, Riley Adams).
  Explain: Teams that have multiple high-strikeout hitters will make it much easier for the opposing pitcher to record strikeouts

Betting Trends

• Over/Under 8.5 Game Total (-105/-115)
  The Washington Nationals have hit the Game Total Over in 24 of their last 34 games (+13.85 Units / 37% ROI)
• Athletics – Run Line +1.5 (-185)
  The Athletics have hit the Run Line in 31 of their last 51 games (+6.35 Units / 9% ROI)
• Shea Langeliers – Over/Under 0.5 Hits (-210/+160)
  Shea Langeliers has hit the Hits Over in 13 of his last 15 away games (+9.10 Units / 32% ROI)