The Washington Nationals got an excellent scoreless start last night by Cade Cavalli followed by 3.0 final innings of shutout bullpen work to setup the walk-off heroics by Robert Hassell III and CJ Abrams to get the Nats a much-needed victory and end that nasty losing streak. What the Nats have to do now is piece together wins.
With 49-games remaining in the season, we said this before that this is try-out season for next year. Both Hassell and Daylen Lile will be in the same lineup to face the same starting pitcher, and let’s see who gets it done. With Dylan Crews having an imminent return to the outfield, we will see how the Nats get playing time for everyone plus you really want to get a look at least in September at Nick Schnell who is raking in Triple-A as a former first round draft pick who the Nats snagged in the offseason. Right now, Josh Bell is struggling with the bat and will sit today to get James Wood off his feet and get at-bats as the DH.
“That’s my closer right there. Now you get to see [Jose A. Ferrer]. That was my closer right there.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with CJ Abrams at +2.9, James Wood at +2.9, MacKenzie Gore at +2.4. Add those up, and you get a total of +8.2 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. looked 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.
“It was getting to that point where I didn’t want him to face Kurtz again. That was the third time around, and he’s a very dangerous hitter against righties. So I didn’t want to take that chance.”
— Cairo said after the game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.99 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.93 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 0.00
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.35
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.42 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.89
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.29
Athletics vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 12:05 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 175 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
