Turn the page on Friday’s game and hope that Josiah Gray and Joey Gallo will bounceback from a game to forget about. Gray had been looking good, but Gallo was slowed by a quadriceps injury and is racking up the strikeouts at a pace that has reached the wrong side of 50 percent. His K rate is currently 53.33. His .071 batting average is the math from just one hit in 14 at-bats. The fans are concerned even though we keep the mantra that Spring Training stats generally mean nothing. Also, Robert Hassell III entered the game in the fifth inning and made a quick exit. What’s up with that? Someone at the game thinks he hurt his leg. Crickets, nobody else reported Hassell’s quick exit but us.
Today for Game #1 of this day/night doubleheader has Trevor Williams in his second start of Spring Training. He got a delayed start to pitching due to an excused absence for the birth of his child. The lineup has James Wood and Nasim Nunez in the starting lineup. Only Luis Garcia Jr. and Lane Thomas, who both played last night, are in the starting lineup in this game.
The Nats are facing the Astros again as they share the stadium with them at the CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches. For the second time, the Nats will face Jose Urquidy. This will be his third start, and he’s been stingy with baserunners, just yielding a 0.80 WHIP and he hasn’t allowed a run to score with his 0.00 ERA.
This is a 12:05 first pitch with the second game against the Miami Marlins at 6:05 pm. The odd part is that both Houston’s TV and MASN are both broadcasting the game, but the second game this evening has no TV coverage, just Marlins’ radio.
All of that is disappointing for the fans who have been getting a lack of TV and radio coverage as well as limited media coverage. Don’t think that the lack of coverage has anything to do with the Nats winning versus losing since the only outlet that eliminated a beat writer from 2019 to now is The Athletic. On a typical game, this is what a postgame media room looks like with manager Dave Martinez consisting of three beat writers, a camera operator, one writer from the visitor’s beat, and a few dozen empty chairs.
