The 79-75 Nats will not be playing for the post-season in 2015; however, there are some players with something to prove in the remaining 8 games and we begin to wonder if and when we will see these youngsters play.
Take a long look in the mirror and heed the words of Max Scherzer:
Max Scherzer: "Everybody in this clubhouse needs to reflect on what happened this year and why we weren’t able to achieve our goals." #Nats
— Chris Johnson (@masnCJ) September 27, 2015
A.J. Cole hasn’t pitched in a game since his last start in AAA-Syracuse almost 4 weeks ago. It seems like he wouldn’t even be available to pitch with that length of time off the mound. The same for Taylor Jordan who hasn’t seen any big league action since the Minor Leagues.
The position players we are clamoring to see extended looks of are Trea Turner, Wilmer Difo and Pedro Severino.
Trea Turner in the month of September (small sample size 10 PAs) is batting .500 with a .600 OBP and .625 slugging % and only 1 K and 2 SBs. Compare that to Ian Desmond in the month of September (large sample size 104 PAs) is batting .209 with a .275 OBP and .286 slugging % and 33 Ks and no stolen bases and 1 caught stealing.
Yes, reality is Trea Turner is not guaranteed to be better than Ian Desmond, but let’s get real, there’s pitchers on the Nats staff who can beat those Desmond stats (.209 BA) if they played every day.
#Nats v #Phillies: Taylor CF, Rendon2B, Harper RF, Escobar3B, Robinson1B, Desmond SS, den Dekker LF, Lobaton C, Gio P pic.twitter.com/eKeajog8i7
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 27, 2015
If you predicted that Trea Turner would not start, you would be correct. Today was supposed to be the last home game until there was that issue with the Reds game rainout that got rescheduled to be played tomorrow which means Desi needs the proper send-off for either today or tomorrow or quite possibly both games. He is the longest tenured player from the Expos/Nationals system.
