The Washington Nationals enter today after a day-off yesterday. Since their team meeting last week, the team has a 4-1 record. Coincidentally, the Nats had that team meeting in Atlanta, and won their first game after the meeting to end a long losing streak. No easy task today as the Nationals are supposed to face the Braves’ ace, Spencer Strider, in his first game off of the IL. If Nats’ starter, Mitchell Parker, is as good as he was in the month of April, the Nats could be hard to beat in today’s game.
There were no roster moves today by the Nationals given that all of their players had good weekends in Baltimore. The only current issue is the health of Jacob Young who is recovering from a shoulder contusion after he collided with the outfield wall on Saturday. He was in the original lineup then was subsequently scratched.
“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 CJ Abrams and James Wood at +1.7 followed by MacKenzie Gore, and Mitchell Parker. The Baltimore series lifted a lot of WAR values.
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.
“We were aggressive in the zone. We took some pitches. We worked good counts. And when we got the ball in the zone, we swung the bats really well.”
— manager Dave Martinez said about the series in Baltimore
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.49 and 7th worst in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 6.55 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 5.95
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 4.32
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.88
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.67
Atlanta Braves 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 178 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
