Less than 1/10 of the season is remaining, and the Nats are riding a 3 game winning streak into Game 1 of 3 against their regional rival from just up I-295 that connects Baltimore to Washington, DC.
Besides the close geographical proximity to each other, the common bond between the 2 rivals is in the entangled regional broadcasting company which both teams have a large financial interest in with Baltimore’s owner retaining the overwhelming majority ownership. The regional TV network that broadcasts both teams’ games is where the strain is as there is the ongoing tenuous legal situation. MASN put out this nice tweet on the co-NL Players of the Week winners with a picture that evokes the thought of “What are they looking at?” and couldn’t you find a better dual photo?
RETWEET to congratulate Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg on being named co-NL Players of the Week! pic.twitter.com/6EzHKY6eSp
— Nationals on MASN (@masnNationals) September 21, 2015
A little more work from the graphics department gets you this:
Congrats to @Bharper3407 & @stras37, named co-NL Players of the Week!! http://t.co/TCW5HnRdmK pic.twitter.com/ygSsp8UtzP
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 21, 2015
Tonight’s game 1 features Ubaldo Jimenez and Gio Gonzalez. Jimenez has a 4.31 ERA this season for the Orioles and has struggled for consistency. Ubaldo throws the sinker as his primary pitch and his secondary pitch is the splitter. He also throws a slider and will also throw the curveball.
Nats players have faced Ubaldo before but so much of the sample size is from the years when Ubaldo was a dominant pitcher. He gets himself in trouble when his pitches are up in the zone. His velo has dropped over the years to where he is more of a finesse pitcher with his sinker sitting at 91-92mph.
Lineups:
#Nats vs. #Orioles: Rendon 2B, Escobar 3B, Harper RF, Werth LF, Robinson 1B, Desmond SS, Taylor CF, Lobaton C, Gio P pic.twitter.com/CUo81RKyol
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 21, 2015
Injury updates: Danny Espinosa got an ultrasound on his right hamstring which was diagnosed as a strain. Ryan Zimmerman still has not resumed baseball activities, and that is not good news as after today there are only 12 scheduled games left in the regular season. If RZim doesn’t play anymore this season, he would finish with only 95 games played and the worst BA (.249), OBP (.308) and OPS (.773) of his career. Ryan only played 61 games last year, and this certainly is not what Rizzo envisioned when they signed him to that 11 year deal back in 2009. While Ryan has played in a little over 1/2 the team’s games it was evident that he wasn’t 100% for much of the games.
