Going Deep with The Nats

The Nationals lost their third consecutive game in the bullpen and move to 12-games under .500 with this loss after this 4-game sweep in New York. The last time in Nationals history that this team was exactly 12-games under .500 was on August 6th of 2010. That is how far back in the Nats time capsule you must look to find ineptitude of this proportion, but that team had a payroll below $80 million and the losing was expected.  This is a $200 million team that was built to win the NL East yet has a bullpen that has built a reputation on crumbling under pressure.

The ways they find to lose baffles the mind. The Nationals out-hit the Mets 13-7, and wasted a very nice 7.0 inning start from Stephen Strasburg where he surrendered two earned runs. Now it is the Mets who are reeling from injuries, and yet the Nats bullpen struggled against a bunch of players who were recently called up from the minors. No Cano, Conforto, Nimmo or McNeil. That is four lefties missing in action. Continue reading →

Photo by Marlene Koenig for Talknats

The win was 4-outs away, and Sean Doolittle who had not pitched in four days looked rusty and allowed 6-runs to score when taking over with 2-outs in the 8th inning. Doolittle entered the game to face Carlos Gomez who was batting .077 this season, and he plunked him on the first pitch to load the bases then Doolittle gave up a gapper double to score 3-runs and followed that up 2 batters later to face callup Rajai Davis who then got him for a 3-run home run. All this came in a game that Max Scherzer threw a 6.0 inning shutout. The Nats only run in the game came from an Adam Eaton home run off of Jacob deGrom. Continue reading →

Erick Fedde; Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

Not since September 11th of 2011 have the Washington Nationals been 10-games below .500 until tonight as the Nationals lose on a walk-off infield single by the final score of 6-5. This was another game that was lost in the bullpen, and tonight the blown save and loss was tagged on callup Tanner Rainey who threw 33-pitches in the game but only 19 strikes. Rainey gave up 2 costly walks and the first batter he walked scored the walk-off run. The Nationals came back in this game twice, but the Nats gave up 3 leads in this game.  Continue reading →

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

On this night, Patrick Corbin did not have his best stuff and gave up 4-runs over 5.0 innings, and the Nationals could not capitalize against the Mets spot starter Wilmer Font for more than the 2-runs the Nats pushed across. Anthony Rendon did his part in the game, and Yan Gomes‘ bat woke up as he shortened up his swing and served 3-hits over the infielders including an RBI single. Unfortunately, Gomes was stranded each time he was on-base. Continue reading →

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

It was a heck of a comeback attempt by the Nationals, but unfortunately it ends in a loss. No participation trophies. The game started with 3 consecutive walks issued by Nationals starter Jeremy Hellickson that dug a hole for his team. Hellickson was relieved by Kyle McGowin who allowed 3 more runs to score which made the tally at the time a 6-1 deficit then the Nats chipped away with a 3-run home run by Anthony Rendon and a solo shot by Howie Kendrick to make the score 6-5. The Nats scored 4 unanswered runs but could not get that to the 6 unanswered runs to win it. A great comeback stalled and turned into the Nats 27th loss of the season. In the end, it was another of those heartbreaking one-run losses.  Continue reading →