The Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles have even more competition today from the Washington Capitals who are in playoff hockey just up the street. Last night, there was just under 30,000 in paid attendance to watch the Nats dominate in a 7-0 1-hit win with 8.0 strong innings from Mitchell Parker.
With two more home runs last night by the Nats’ offense from the bats of Nathaniel Lowe and Dylan Crews, the team moved up into the top-half of MLB teams for most home runs. But the team is only 21st in OPS had a poor .696. Much of that is a function of the team’s poor OBP at .308.
Manager Dave Martinez has pointed to the issue that the hitters are expanding the strike zone and not taking their walks. That was not an issue yesterday as the Nats’ bats were red hot and cranked 14 hits. Unfortunately, two players went hitless with Josh Bell and Nasim Nunez both hitting the in .100 level. Both Jose Tena and Luis Garcia Jr. pulled themselves well above the Mendoza line yesterday just leaving Crews, Bell, Nunez, and Riley Adams under the mark with Crews just needing a multi-hit game today to get over .200.
“For me, it’s all about defense,” Martinez said. “He’s got to play good defense for us. We’ve got good starting pitching. We’ve got to catch the ball. If he can do that, as he showed today, he’ll get a chance to play. I really believe he can hit. It’s his defense. We lost a really good defender in Paul DeJong. So he’s got to step it up now. He’s got to go play defense.”
— manager Dave Martinez said
You can see the recent bullpen usage here:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with MacKenzie Gore followed by James Wood, Mitchell Parker, Nathaniel Lowe and Keibert Ruiz. On defense, Paul DeJong is your OAA leader, and Amed Rosario who barely plays is a -2.0 already. Unfortunately Luis Garcia Jr.‘s defensive struggles are back, and he is also a -2.0 OAA on defense. Here are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good — but the gap is widening.
“When [Parker] pounds the strike zone he’s tough. He threw the ball really well and was all over the strike zone. He put those guys in swing mode and that’s when you get them chasing. The defense was really good behind him.”
— Martinez said
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.62 and 8th best in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 7.09 and is the worst in MLB.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 5.95
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 7.20
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 1.39
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.68
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.41
Baltimore Orioles vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 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, tune to Channel 181 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
