The Washington Nationals put a 6-spot on the Orioles in the first inning while going 6-for-7 with a walk the first time through the order on their way to a 10-6 victory. The Nats not only won this series with just today’s game remaining to be played, they have already won the season series against Baltimore with 4-wins against them in the books.
Before yesterday’s game, the Orioles fired their manager, Brandon Hyde. He was the third manager fired this season in MLB. The Nationals were mired in a 7-game losing streak into the mid-week. The Nats fired nobody. They did have a team meeting that seemed to be about the lack of energy if you heard what Nasim Nunez said, “We didn’t have any energy, I felt like, then we had a [team] meeting, and it felt like it sparked a lot. I want to go out there and set the tone, and hopefully people follow.”
Yesterday’s game had Jake Irvin with a shutout through the 6th inning. I made an observation during Irvin’s 6th inning that his arm was dragging, and he wasn’t finishing some of his pitches while missing to the lefties to his glove side. That was fine, he finished the 6th inning, and was hoping his day would be done, knowing full-well that Martinez would try to get another inning out of him. Of course, Irvin came out for the 7th inning and gave up a hard double to lead-off the inning followed by a groundout and then an RBI single. Nobody was warming in the bullpen. The next batter reached on an error of a dropped ball by Nathaniel Lowe — and still, Irvin stayed in the game with his pitch count climbing towards 100. He was not locating pitches, and the next batter tee’d off and hit one to center field. Jacob Young gave it all he had and smashed into the wall that looked like a car crash. Another run had scored, and Young was helped off of the field. Why was Irvin allowed to stay in the game to that point to self-destruct? The bullpen still had to get two outs in that inning of high stress relief, and fortunately Jose A. Ferrer stranded both runners in a 7-2 game. Unfortunately, Young is now hurt with what is being called a shoulder contusion.
This is the Martinez issue. Game after game of pushing his starting pitchers hard — when he does not have to. He had a 7-0 lead, and you could see Irvin was tiring. He had four relievers who had throw 27-or-fewer pitches in the past three days. So what was the urgency if three innings had to be covered?
Now you have to wonder if a roster change will come with Young hurt. He is listed as day-to-day for now. Then you have to wonder if the Nats could make a move to upgrade at third base with the struggles there. The team is having their issues, and you wonder what general manager Mike Rizzo might do. The 45-game mark in a season should tell you a lot about some of the starters and Dylan Crews and Josh Bell are penciled in there every single day. Crews is more valuable since he can play great defense. But Crews just is not consistently seeing the baseball. Bell has been a real issue, especially against left-handed pitching. Here is a snapshot of the players who aren’t providing positive WAR:
The seven players highlighted in yellow were all offseason signings. As most know, Lucas Sims and Colin Poche were both taken off the team, and Eduardo Salazar was demoted to Triple-A.
Coming into this game, the Nationals have now won 3-of-4 games since that team meeting, and the energy level is up. Today’s game might hinge on the arm of Michael Soroka who enters this game with a 6.43 ERA. But if you look at Soroka’s three starts this season, they are all similar where he starts off looking great then runs out of gas quickly. He is like the thoroughbred that takes the quick lead in the Preakness and by the 4th furlong has nothing left. His past two starts, he had 3.0 scoreless innings going with leads and then was pushed for more and faltered. This is why Soroka’s team from last year moved him from the starter’s role to the bullpen. He almost feels like an opener. Some days, he might give you 5.0 innings of zeroes, and others it is three. Maybe his stamina will be better today. But you seem to get more with less from Soroka.
“When your margin for error is smaller, you have to play a cleaner brand of baseball.”
— Rizzo said on Wednesday on 106.7 The Fan radio
You can see the recent bullpen usage here:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +1.6 followed by MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, and Mitchell Parker. On the negative side, Josh Bell has fallen to a -1.0 at this point and the worst on the team.
On defense, the stats are starting to give you an idea of what this defense is all about. Paul DeJong is your OAA leader and he hasn’t played in over a month dating back to April 15. Luis Garcia Jr. has slumped this season defensively to a -4.0 already — and with CJ Abrams, they combine for -8.0 OAA. Another issue that we have discussed is the positioning of Nathaniel Lowe at first base as he is too often out of position to make a play — and OAA has his chance at success at only 61 percent which must improve. With as little as Amed Rosario has played on defense, he is at -7.0 OAA this season and the worst on the team. Per Statcast, his defense has cost the Nationals 5-runs. Is his offense good enough to make up that deficit? Keibert Ruiz, per Statcast, has a -5.0 OAA also. The Nationals were supposed to be better on defense. What has happened?
These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good — but the gap is widening.
“I’m no doctor. It’s great to hear X-rays were clean. I think that’s the first step to make sure that’s clean, and then you kind of listen to our trainers — and go from there.”
— Jacob Young said after the game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.49 and 6th worst in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 6.64 and no longer the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 5.91
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 6.43
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 4.32
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.88
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.67
Washington Nationals vs. Baltimore Orioles
Stadium: Orioles Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland
1st Pitch: 1:35 pm EDT
TV: MASN2
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 178 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
