[Spraguer]

Some small factors coming together:

1. Shawn Hill - while nothing special - is a bit better than his raw stats indicate. He has a strong groundball tendency (1.7 GB/FB ratio), which is compounded by the size of RFK (unlikely to give up many home runs).

2. Chris Snelling and Josh Wilson/Ronnie Belliard will be replacing the injured Nook Logan and Christian Guzman. These changes almost certainly improve the offense (and with the groundballing Hill on the mound, the defensive downgrade in the OF - Church to CF and Snelling in LF - shouldn't hurt too bad).

That's basically it. I'm putting a small investment in the idea that Shawn Hill is not as bad as most Nationals pitchers, and that the offense will improve with Snelling and Wilson or Belliard.

Also, though this factor isn't built into my handicapping model because it would be a nightmare to take proper account of on a daily basis, but I did notice that the Nationals did not use either of their two good relief pitchers yesterday (Rauch and Cordero), whereas three of the top Marlins relievers (Julio - the closer -, Owens and Messenger) all pitched yesterday.

Just some value in the Nats.