Tonight begins the final three games of the regular season for both the Marlins and Nationals. This game does have some post-season implications. The Nationals control their own destiny in securing home field advantage for the NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers which makes this an important game for the Nationals. The Nationals Magic Number for home field advantage is 2 which would mean any combination of a Nationals win or a Dodgers loss reduces that Magic Number.
For the Marlins, tonight’s game is still in the shadows of the passing of Jose Fernandez which happened less than a week ago, and his funeral was just yesterday.The Marlins were officially eliminated this week from the post-season, and there is no telling what Don Mattingly does with his line-up for tonight as they could certainly use this weekend to look at call-ups like Destin Hood who was an original Nationals draftee, and players like Xavier Scruggs, Yefri Perez, and Tomas Telis.
The Nationals start A.J. Cole who is appealing his suspension for an incident on Sunday where he threw a pitch behind Jung-Ho Kang. The Marlins start Andrew Cashner tonight.
The Nationals have a game-time decision on Bryce Harper as well as inserting some call-ups if Dusty Baker decides to rest players against the right-handed Cashner. Dusty is still trying to figure out roles for the post-season roster as he explained in his post-game presser last night. Dusty Baker also said yesterday that we might use Daniel Murphy to pinch-hit in this series.
To mark Bryce Harper’s return to the starting line-up we have this humorous Gatorade commercial with one of our own TalkNats commenters who doesn’t want to be identified because he can’t pitch worth a s***!
Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN2, Fox Sports Florida, MLB.TV
Line-ups (subject to change without notice):
- Trea Turner CF
- Jayson Werth LF
- Bryce Harper RF
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Stephen Drew 2B
- Clint Robinson 1B
- Danny Espinosa SS
- Jose Lobaton C
- A.J. Cole RHP
