Washington Nationals photo
The Washington Nationals get to host another Father’s Day game. It was exactly 15 years ago when the Nats took down a 1st place New York team with Ryan Zimmerman‘s first career walk-off home run. Now Mr. Walk-Off has eleven of those in his career, and there might not been a more exciting moment than the walk-off homer.
Could there be more walk-off home runs in Zimmerman’s future? He had a golden opportunity on Friday night and delivered a key single to set-up Yan Gomes walk-off heroics to beat the New York Mets. Zim is chasing history in pursuit of Jim Thome who has 13 career walk-off home runs followed by Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Albert Pujols, Frank Robinson (Zim’s 1st manager), and Babe Ruth who all have 12 walk-off home runs, and Zim is tied with David Ortiz and Tony Perez with 11 walk-off home runs. While Mr. Walk-off will not be enshrined in Cooperstown like all of those other retired players, sans Ortiz, the 36-year-old would get a request from the Hall-of-Fame for memorabilia if he could hit three more walk-off home runs to surpass Thome.
Turner says he’s under pressure on his first Father’s Day because his wife told him he can pick whatever he wants for dinner.
— Todd Dybas (@Todd_Dybas) June 20, 2021
This series against the Mets will be determined by the outcome of this game in a four game series that the Nats are ahead by one. Manager Dave Martinez‘s team will pin their hopes on Patrick Corbin besting righty Taijuan Walker today. Walker has a 2.12 ERA overall and 2.84 on the road. Walker has been even stingier during day games so here we are.
Nats vs. Taijuan Walker
Corbin is coming off of a season’s high 110 pitch performance that took him into the 9th inning five days ago that was a nice Nats win. We will see if Corbin can be aces again, and he has to perform great to make his manager’s decision five days ago look “sane” in baseball terms when Corbin returned for the final inning in a blowout game to try to get a complete game and quickly put two men on-base and was pulled. Justin Miller had to finish the game which he did without allowing the inherited runners to score.
This game is going to be a hot one with temperatures in the low 90’s, and the tension on the field should be higher with so much riding on this game. With a win today, the Nats are firmly back into the pennant race and just 5.0 games back. The other outcome has the Nats on the outside looking in. For more optimism, Max Scherzer declared himself ready to pitch and return from the IL, and he has declared himself ready to pitch the Tuesday opener against the Phillies.
New York Mets vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 1:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN2, SNY, MLB.TV
Nats Radio: 106.7 FM The Fan; SiriusXM® ( Streaming Internet 869)
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
1. Kyle Schwarber LF
2. Trea Turner SS
3. Juan Soto RF
4. Josh Bell 1B
5. Yan Gomes C
6. Josh Harrison 2B
7. Starlin Castro 3B
8. Victor Robles CF
9. Patrick Corbin LHP
