Photo by Tom Cicotello for TalkNats
With manager Dave Martinez inserting in Stephen Strasburg into yesterday’s game in front of Patrick Corbin who pitches today, it would appear the rotation ordering is set. Here is what the order now looks like 1. Max Scherzer 2. Strasburg 3. Corbin 4. Anibal Sanchez 5. Jeremy Hellickson. The more complicated question would be who catches each pitcher? There might not even be a real answer for catching assignments. Yan Gomes is one of the best defensive catchers, and pitchers all want the best defensive catcher.
Some pitchers adapt to their catchers and some do not. If we learned one thing about Patrick Corbin, it was that he had cavernous catcher’s splits last year with the Diamondbacks. The one area his former team failed was splitting Corbin’s games between Jeff Mathis and Alex Avila. Mathis had a 1.83 ERA with Corbin while Avila caught Corbin to a 3.34 ERA. The sample sizes were 86 and 73 innings respectively so not exactly small sample sizes. Corbin needs to choose one catcher between Gomes and Kurt Suzuki and try to replicate the magic he had with Mathis last year.
We finally got the answer to the absence of Justin Miller that he has been suffering from back pain. We also think we have the answer to Ryan Zimmerman‘s status. He is supposed to play today. Yes, you have read that statement five times already in the past week so you have no reason to believe it now. When Zim plays, he plays — then we will wait and see the next time he plays after that.
“When things are good and my body is good,” Ryan Zimmerman said. “I’m going to play pretty regularly. If something comes up and my body doesn’t feel good, then I’m not going to play.”
Minnesota Twins vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, West Palm Beach, Florida
1st Pitch: 1:05 pm EDT
TV:
Nats Radio: 106.7 The Fan
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
Adam Eaton RF
Anthony Rendon 3B
Juan Soto LF
Ryan Zimmerman 1B
Matt Adams DH
Kurt Suzuki C
Michael A. Taylor CF
Wilmer Difo 2B
Carter Kieboom SS
Patrick Corbin LHP
