The Washington Nationals are in an 18-inning scoreless drought as MASN play-by-play voice, Bob Carpenter, was announcing every scoreless inning like it was breaking news. At one time, he said it was 21-innings and corrected himself. It’s bad, but we were talking about the bad offense in a series of three articles that started in April.
Of course sometimes you try to get greedy with a lineup to push more offense — and the defense suffers. This defensive alignment goes against all analytics. You could have achieved the same lineup with better results by putting Jesse Winker at DH and Eddie Rosario in LF for starters. Yes, Joey Gallo in RF, and Joey Meneses at 1B. Yes, it’s not perfect — but the Nats best fielder is Jacob Young and he is on the bench while Victor Robles and his -1.0 OAA mans the vast CF in Philadelphia. Please make sense of this for me?!?
Yes, Gallo was activated off of the 10-day IL with a shoulder issue, and unfortunately the roster squeeze sent Trey Lipscomb back to Triple-A Rochester.
This series has Zack Wheeler going to night, and Aaron Nola on Sunday. The Phillies starting pitching is the best in MLB at the moment. Manager Dave Martinez has Jake Irvin going tonight with the task to throw zeroes.
With plans to get Josiah Gray back into a rehab assignment, you have to wonder if he can make it back in the month of May. Here’s what we think the schedule could look like going forward:
- Friday: Jake Irvin vs. Phillies
- Saturday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Phillies
- Sunday: Trevor Williams vs. Phillies
- Monday: Mitchell Parker vs. Twins
- Tuesday: Patrick Corbin vs. Twins
- Wednesday: Irvin vs. Twins
- Thursday: Day-off May 23
- Friday: Gore vs. Mariners
- Saturday: Williams vs. Mariners
- Sunday: Parker vs. Mariners
- Monday: Corbin vs. Atlanta
- Tuesday: Irvin vs. Atlanta
- Wednesday: Gore vs. Atlanta
- Thursday: Williams vs. Atlanta
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has Trevor Williams at +1.2 WAR, and MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams near the top at a +1.1. In total, 21 Nats’ players are in positive WAR and another seven at a neutral 0.0 WAR. Unfortunately, Keibert Ruiz has moved past the -1.0 WAR line at the quarter-pole of the season. Can he turn that around like Eddie Rosario?
“We are who we are [on offense]. We’ve got guys out there, and we just have to keep working with them. I’ve seen signs where they were going to come out of it, and then start hitting — and then the last two games, it just didn’t happen.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after Wednesday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.97 and 14th in MLB. The Nats are now 7 points from 13th best in baseball. The team has been slowly moving up in the rankings it seems week by week.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.59
No. 4 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.55
No. 3 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.38
No. 2 Starter: Mitchell Parker 3.09
No. 1 Starter: Trevor Williams 1.94
Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies
Stadium: Citizens Bank Ballpark, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1st Pitch: 6:40 pm EDT
TV: MASN
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app; In Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. On Sirius/XM, the Nats will be online, and the opposing team on Channel 176.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
The lineup did change has Luis Garcia Jr. was scratched with some heel pain in his foot, and was replaced by Ildemaro Vargas.
TalkNats is Celebrating the 5 and 100 year anniversaries of World Series Wins by providing Game-by-Game Summaries.
Game 43:
The Nationals won on 05/16 at home against the Mets resulting in a record of 18-25. The Nats attacked Zack Wheeler for 6 runs on this day in 2019. Erick Fedde relieved an injured Anibal Sanchez and gave back 4 runs. The Nats held on to win even though Sean Doolittle nearly blew a 3-run save. The Nats were still playing without Trea Turner and Ryan Zimmerman, and it was Gerardo Parra and Kurt Suzuki as the offensive heroes of that game. Box Score / Standings
The Senators lost on 06/08 on the road against the Cleveland Indians resulting in a record of 21-22. Box Score / Standings
