Austin Voth; Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats
Manager Dave Martinez chose Austin Voth as his fifth starter this season, and with the injury to Stephen Strasburg, he moved up to the fourth starter’s spot. The team is 1-4 in Voth starts and the one win was a slugfest the Nats won after Voth gave up five runs. You just cannot continue this way if you have postseason aspirations. Voth has a 6.65 ERA and gave up 6 runs in this one over just 3 2/3 innings and rookie Dakota Bacus gave up 4 runs in just 2/3 of an inning. The rest of the Nats pitchers held the Marlins to 1 run over 4 2/3 innings while the Nats offense knocked in another 8 runs in this game.
What a night by Juan Soto who went 4-5 in this game to raise his batting average to .400. Trea Turner continued his hitting streak to 10 games and now has 15 games reaching base safely at least two times in a game in the 26th game of the season. Adam Eaton was 2-5 and had the big 3-run home run to close the gap in the game to 11-8. In fact, every Nats batter reached base safely, but Asdrubal Cabrera continues to struggle as a lefty hitter this season batting just .162 and tonight he stranded five runners. The Nats had a total of 19 RISP situations in this game. They had a chance to blow the game open offensively, but generally when you score 8 runs you win.
For all of the positives, the negatives added up to the loss and it is another case of one step forward and one step backwards. The Nats dropped to 11-15 on the season.
“Our starting pitchers have to go deeper into games,” Martinez said. “We can’t keep doing this every night. … You have to pound the strike zone.”
Martinez said you don’t have to “nibble” with two strikes rather you have to “attack” hitters with two strikes.
“I’m not going to jump to conclusions tonight,” said Martinez in regards to replacing Voth in the rotation.
If the team wants to reach the postseason, they need a middle of the rotation starter who gives Martinez a chance to go past 5 innings and give his team a chance to win. With less than a week from next Monday’s 4 pm trade deadline, general manager Mike Rizzo needs to find that pitcher to add to the rotation.
