by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Ben Belford-Peltzman
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
Coming into this week, the Washington Nationals had 11 blown saves and 11 bullpen losses. In the past two games, the team’s blown saves have shot up to 13 — but the bullpen losses remained at 11. In back-to-back games, the bullpen bent but didn’t break, and in the process, secured two signature wins among some craziness if you watched the games. The Nats are now tied with the Phillies for 4th place in the NL East.
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A happy flight home from LAX on Wednesday with an early Thursday arrival in Washington, D.C. was followed by a much-needed day off work. Today is the first game of 2023 against the rival Phillies, and separated by just 1.0 game in the standings.
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The baseball season is moving along, and the All-Star game is less than six weeks away. The mid-summer classic will occur on July 11 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. It will mark the third time Seattle hosts the All-Star game, as they hosted in 1979 and 2001. Seattle will also play host to popular events such as will the Futures Game on July 8, the Home Run Derby on July 10, and the MLB Draft on July 9. For Nats fans, expect at least one top prospect in the Futures Game, and we can all wonder who the Nats’ representative will be on the All-Star roster. Top candidates are Jeimer Candelario, Lane Thomas, MacKenzie Gore, and Josiah Gray. We should get more clarity by the end of June.
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It will be a happy flight on the Washington Nationals’ Delta charter from Los Angeles back to Washington, D.C. after the Nats put an end to their 3-game losing streak in dramatic fashion in Dodger Stadium this afternoon. This time a blown save, the team’s twelfth on the season, did not end up in a loss. The way this team keeps battling back is impressive — it is finishing off teams that has been the problem. We all know that it is not a squad with a superstar player any more, but they are a team that picks up each other and believes in each other, and fights to the end.
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It is just a broken record this week on the three losses — that it is not only the errors that show up in the box score, but also the misplays and miss-reads that don’t show up with the “E” like the routine flyball off the bat of Freddie Freeman to Joey Meneses in right field that just was not caught and helped lead to a four run inning for the Dodgers advantage. We say it all the time that the Washington Nationals just are not good enough at this point in the their rebuild to make unforced errors and survive it. Actually, we wrote that exact sentence yesterday. It bears repeating.
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We say it all the time that the Washington Nationals just are not good enough at this point in the their rebuild to make unforced errors and survive it. On Sunday, it was a grounder through the wickets on Dom Smith, and last night was a grounder booted by CJ Abrams that led to six unearned runs. The Nats were actually leading 1-0 at the time. With two tough losses in a row, the road does not get easier tonight as the suddenly struggling Jake Irvin has to face the Dodgers’ best pitcher in Tony Gonsolin.
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The Washington Nationals franchise was in a dark and ominous place a year ago as Juan Soto was turning down record-breaking offers from the Nats — a team that was rumored to be sold imminently at the time. Also, the Nats had mostly middling prospects going into last season, but none, other than Cade Cavalli, were turning heads at a national level in a farm system that ranked last; they were at the bottom of MLB in the standings, and had a nebulous future to another road to being a championship team.
Skip ahead a few months from there to July of 2022, and with a blockbuster trade of Soto, the Nationals acquired five elite players for their farm system just weeks after the MLB draft added a Top-100 prospect in Elijah Green, and a Top-200 prospect in Jake Bennett. By August 1 of last year, there seemed to be a much clearer future looking through the clouds at the sunshine. And now in just 40 days and 40 nights, is the 2023 draft — and the Nats hold the coveted second pick overall in one of the deepest tops of a draft, ever. That’s a game changer.
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The Washington Nationals looked like they were ready to celebrate their first series win since August of 2021 in yesterday’s game, but it was not meant to be. From a MacKenzie Gore 7.0 inning gem and a 2-1 lead into the eighth inning, it all slipped away on the team’s 11th blown save, and 11th bullpen loss. An error by the normally sure-handed Dom Smith, in Bill Buckner style, turned into the winning run in the final inning for the Royals. The Nats will now face the Dodgers for three games with this contest marking the one-third pole in the season.
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The Washington Nationals notched another come-from-behind win last night in Kansas City. This team is playing exciting baseball, and tomorrow they will reach the one-third mark in the season. Since that trip to l’étoile du nord, “the star of the north”, in Minnesota, the Nats are 18-16 in that 34-game stretch, and while that sounds good for a rebuilding team — fact is that is the fourth best record in that span for NL teams.
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The Washington Nationals authored a KC masterpiece with a relentless offensive explosion last night scoring 12-runs, and led by a 6-for-6 performance by Luis Garcia. All of a sudden, he is batting .288, and he tied Anthony Rendon for the only Nat with 6-hits in a game. Rendon did that back on April 30, 2017.
Unfortunately, the Nats 9-3 lead was not the laugher it was supposed to be with a scare in the 7th inning. Starter Patrick Corbin came out for that inning after a shaky 6th inning in which he gave up a run, and a pitch count of 92. It appeared he was done with a Quality Start, but there he was for the 7th and he put three runners on-base with no outs before he retired his first out and was pulled.
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