The Washington Nationals offense was once again shutout and almost lifeless. The scoreless streak ratcheted up to 21 painful innings without crossing the plate. To lose 1-0 and create no small ball was surprising. But as usual, this team seems to go as James Wood goes. He had one of his worst games of the season last night en route to an 0-4 with three strikeouts. The team is 15-48 when Wood doesn’t drive in a run.
The Nationals have lefty Mitchell Parker on the mound, and the Twins have righty Joe Ryan who is having a great season for Minnesota. He is 10-4 with a 2.63 ERA in his 20 starts. Ryan was an All-Star this year and improved his ERA almost a full run from last year in his best season of his career. Not a good matchup for a Nats team struggling to score runs.
The Nats only have 5-games and 5-days remaining after today until the trade deadline. Rumors are flying all over the internet on who will be traded. It is that time of year to be on “hug watch” in case any player gets traded mid-game. Do any Nats players have trade value besides the obvious core players or MacKenzie Gore ?
The Nats added LHP reliever Konnor Pilkington to the roster Tuesday — and he has pitched in every game since he was signed. Still perfect in his 3 1/3 innings in relief. But at some point, shouldn’t Pilkington not pitch in a game? He has four strikeouts and six outs on contact. And reliever Luis Garcia has been good also. His 7 1/3 innings of 1-run ball has been great. The current bullpen configuration looks promising even though Brad Lord is back in the starting rotation. You have to wonder if any of the good arms will be traded. On the negative side, Jackson Rutledge has a 6.55 ERA, and we have to see if Andry Lara can improve. We expect that Kyle Finnegan will be traded.
“Everyone’s got to contribute. We cannot be using the same guy all the time, because I don’t want to break their arms.”
— Miguel Cairo said after Wednesday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.5, MacKenzie Gore at +2.8 CJ Abrams at +2.7, and . Add those up, and you get a total of +9.0 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier.
On defense, the OAA stats give you a good picture of the team’s overall defense which is the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good news is that besides Nathaniel Lowe, the defense under interim-manager Miguel Cairo has drastically improved. All of a sudden, Luis Garcia Jr. looks Gold Glove in the month of July.
These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good. The issue is the consistency on this team.
“We didn’t hit. We got three hits, I think. Sometimes it goes like that. They got three hits, too. They just got one more run than us.”
— Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.81 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 5.69 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Brad Lord 3.39 (starting/relieving)
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 4.85
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.00
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.81
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.52
Washington Nationals vs. Minnesota Twins
Stadium: Target Field, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1st Pitch: 7:10 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 184 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
