The National League East leading Atlanta Braves (68-45) and Washington Nationals will meet at 7:05 p.m. tonight in Washington D.C. for the second game of a pivotal series between divisional rivals. The game can be live streamed here; Braves fans can listen in on 93.7 FM, while Nationals fans can do the same on 106.7 The Fan.
The Nationals turn to Gio Gonzalez (7-4, 3.57 ERA) to take one from Atlanta tonight, who likely will be pitching without a large weight on his shoulders. Following the Biogenesis-related suspensions handed down by MLB, Gonzalez escaped unscathed, after vehemently denying any connections to Tony Bosch.
It turns out Gonzalez's father was the one going to Bosch's clinic in an effort to lose weight. He claims his son has never been there, nor has he ever met Bosch. After the suspensions came down Gonzalez said, "I am very pleased that Major League Baseball has cleared my name. I have no lingering sense of animosity, as I quickly realized that the objective of this investigation was to clean up our game."
"My son works very, very hard, and he's as clean as apple pie," Gonzalez's dad said. "I went to Tony because I needed to lose weight. A friend recommended him, and he did great work for me. But that's it. He never met my son. Never. And if I knew he was doing these things with steroids, do you think I'd be dumb enough to go there?"
Now that the scandal is behind him, Gonzalez can focus 100 percent on pitching the Nationals to the postseason. He will need to be razor-sharp to get a win against the red-hot Justin Upton and hotshot pitcher Julio Teheran (8-5, 3.02 ERA).
Upton scorched in April, only to be cold as ice for a solid two months. July was better, but his power had completely deserted him for three consecutive months. It is back now; in August Upton has raked at a .409 clip with four home runs and nine RBI.
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