The Washington Nationals have just 62-games remaining in the season that is over 60 percent completed. This is the final homestand in July.
Did you know that the Nats are 25-14 when James Wood has an RBI? The team is 14-45 with no RBI from Wood. He finally broke up his 0-20 slump with a hit on Sunday. Now Wood has to get hot again.
We are now just 10-days away from the trade deadline. Rumors are flying all over the internet on who will be traded.
“The positive thing was Rutledge and Lara and Cole Henry. They pitched good out of the bullpen. It saves the rest of the bullpen.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.6, MacKenzie Gore at +2.8 CJ Abrams at +3.0, and . Add those up, and you get a total of +9.4 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier. Brady House in his 25-games jumps to a +0.3, and that extrapolates to +2.8 for a full season.
On defense, the stats are clear as to what his defense is all about. Jacob Young is the team’s OAA leader at +7.0 and Brady House is on the list at +1.0. James Wood is at +0.0 on his OAA, and that is a good sign from where he had been early in the season.
One of the newer 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. is at -5.0 — and with CJ Abrams, they combine for -11.0 OAA.
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 64 percent which must improve. His OAA is at -0.4 now, and that just makes the situation even worse. With as little as Amed Rosario has played on defense, he is at -8.0 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.
“I think I was just bad today. I think it was more that I just wasn’t very good. They put the ball in play and got a lot of hits, and they were able to hit two homers. But I just wasn’t very good.”
— MacKenzie Gore said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.84 and 26th 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 5.81 and now the worst in baseball in ERA. The bullpen keeps teetering so close once again to the 6.00 ERA mark that seems impossible at this part of the season.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 6.21
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 5.35
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.00
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.58
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.59
Cincinnati Reds 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 179 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
