Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads, and today is Gio Gonzalez’s first Father’s Day as you may recall, he and his fiancé Lea welcomed their son Enzo into the world back in Spring Training. What an honor that Gio on his first Father’s Day will get to pitch for the Nationals.
Today is also the 10 year anniversary of Ryan Zimmerman’s 1st walk-off on Father’s Day against the New York Yankees back in 2006. Ryan has a 2 year old daughter Mackenzie, and his second daughter, Hayden Lynn, was born earlier this month on June 2, 2016.
This afternoon is the fourth and final game in this four game series against the Padres in San Diego, and the Nats lost last night in excruciating fashion in a game that exposed what many were concerned about in this bullpen. Mike Rizzo was interviewed yesterday before the game and was asked about the bullpen.
“We like our bullpen as it is,” Mike Rizzo said. “It’s a definite positive point for us in the season. When your 9th inning man [Papelbon] goes down, a lot of players are pitching out of comfortable positions. That’s where we find ourselves right now….We have guys who can fill in until Papelbon comes back…I think we have a good mix of guys.”
The Padres will pitch lefty Drew Pomeranz who has been one of their better starters for them this year especially with Tyson Ross injured. Pomeranz currently has a 2.88 ERA and a losing W/L record of 5-7. The Nats are the 2nd best team in the Majors against left-handing pitching and will get a heavy dose of it this entire week as the Nats head up the road to play the LA Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw tomorrow.
The Nats send their own lefty to the mound today in Gio Gonzalez who is 0-4 in his last 5 starts since May 23rd which have all been losses, and Gio’s ERA went from 1.86 to 3.96 in that span.
The Nats clearly need the Gio Gonzalez the Ace clearly to get it going, and be the pitcher who the Nats saw before this 5 game stretch.
Here is your Nats stats against Drew Pomeranz:
Here is Max Gio Gonzalez’s stats against the Padres:
Washington Nationals and San Diego Padres
Stadium: Petco Park, San Diego, CA
1st Pitch: 4:40pm EDT
TV: MASN2, FSSD-San Diego FOX Deportes, MLB.tv
Line-ups (subject to change without notice):
- Michael Taylor CF
- Jayson Werth LF
- Bryce Harper RF
- Daniel Murphy 2B
- Ryan Zimmerman 1B
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Danny Espinosa SS
- Jose Lobaton C
- Gio Gonzalez LHP