The Washington Nationals day/night doubleheader began with a deficit that Trevor Williams and his teammates could not climb out of in the afternoon game. The night game will be counting on MacKenzie Gore to be the team’s ace and get his team a split today.
There were certainly highlights from the afternoon game and most notably Andry Lara‘s debut statistically one of the best in Nats history as his 3.0 innings of scoreless relief saved the bullpen. His strikeout of Riley Greene who had a pair of 3-run homers was a highlight in his four strikeouts. He was a single from a perfect outing.
“I really hope this is just a one-off. Really just one bad inning. We’ll talk to him, see how he’s feeling tomorrow. I know he’s going to work on some things, but we need him. We need him five days from now. He’s got to get ready to get on that bump.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after the first game of the doubleheader about Trevor Williams
Kyle Finnegan pitched 3-innings on Sunday. Given the 8-9 warmup pitches between innings, it’s more like Finnegan threw nearly 50-pitches on Sunday. This bullpen chart isn’t accurate but add 63 pitches for Rutledge to make his count at 80 pitches for the last 3-days, and Eduardo Salazar pitched 14 today to make his count 44 for the last 3-days, and Andry Lara at 36 pitches.
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.5 and MacKenzie Gore at +2.8 followed by CJ Abrams at +2.7. Add those up, and you get a total of +9.0 WAR.
On defense, the stats are clear as to what his defense is all about. Jacob Young is the team’s OAA leader at +6.0 and Brady House is now on the list at +1.0. James Wood got to a +1.0 on his OAA, and that is a good sign from where he had been early in the season.
One of the newest Nats, Daylen Lile, is already at a -5.0 OAA and that is unsustainable as that is one of the worst marks in baseball if you extrapolated it for a full-season. Luis Garcia Jr. has slumped this season defensively to a -7.0 already — and with CJ Abrams, they combine for -13.0 OAA. That is the worst middle infield in baseball and entirely unacceptable.
Another defensive 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 66 percent which must improve. His OAA is at -0.1 now. 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 if he plays the field or should he only DH and PH? Keibert Ruiz, per Statcast, has a -8.0 OAA also. The Nationals were supposed to be better on defense. That clearly isn’t the case.
These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good.
“It’s incredible. It’s something I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid, me and my family. I just don’t have any words.”
— Andry Lara said through an interpretor about his debut
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.60 and 25th best in MLB. You might be surprised at the team just ahead of the Nationals in the rankings. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.84 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 6.21
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 4.70
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 4.63
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.73
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.09
Detroit Tigers vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 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 177 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
- CJ Abrams SS LH
- James Wood LF LH
- Luis Garcia Jr. 2B LH
- Nathaniel Lowe 1B LH
- Josh Bell DH SH
- Paul DeJong 3B RH
- Daylen Lile RF LH
- Riley Adams C RH
- Jacob Young CF RH
