San Diego Padres vs Washington Nationals Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 05/31/26

It isn’t exactly shaping up to be a pitcher’s duel on Sunday afternoon when the San Diego Padres visit the Washington Nationals for their final game of the series, but that isn’t a massive difference from the rest of the series, as the teams combined for 25 runs over the first 2 games.

Griffin Canning didn’t make his season debut until May after missing the first month and a half on the injured list, and he immediately made an impact with a solid 5-inning outing. However, that has been his only great performance of the season thus far, allowing 6 runs in back-to-back games after his first start, and then 3 runs in back-to-back games heading into this matchup. Despite the inflated 7.54 ERA, he hasn’t been quite as bad as those numbers suggest, owning a 4.58 xERA.

Zack Littell had a rough stretch through April, but the righty has seen his ERA drop considerably in May, allowing just 6 earned runs through 24.2 innings. While Canning’s xERA paints him in a better light, Littell’s suggests that there could be a regression to the mean coming after escaping danger in May, as he owns a 6.57 xERA compared to his 5.23 ERA. The starter’s xERA puts him in the bottom 3% of the entire MLB.

This starting pitcher matchup is a bit scary, with both showing some inconsistencies. However, the underlying numbers and the bullpen advantage for San Diego makes me lean the Padres in this one.

Padres vs Nationals prediction: San Diego Padres ML (-130) available at time of publishing. Playable to that number. 

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