The Washington Nationals fell flat again yesterday, and another shutout loss. Today’s recipe facing a left-handed starter in a day-game isn’t a good mix. Per FanGraphs, in day games facing a left-handed starter, the Nats OPS is only .563. Add to that the struggles of some of the players overall, and the mix isn’t good.
What the Nats’ need is for their starter, Brad Lord, to throw up all zeros followed by a bullpen zero. That could drastically change the Nats fortunes if the Washington pitching does their best.
“We have to get better at-bats. We let the fastballs go and chase the breaking pitches.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +2.8, CJ Abrams at +2.7, MacKenzie Gore at +2.4. Add those up, and you get a total of +7.9 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier.
On defense, the OAA stats took a hit recently with a bunch of errors, and Luis Garcia Jr. lost a ball in the sun that hurt his defensive stats. Jacob Young leads the team at +11, and CJ Abrams is on the opposite end at -10. That is actually quite the improvement over last year’s -18 for Abrams who is on pace to finish at -14.
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 have to do the little things.”
— Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.01 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.90 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 5.43
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.42 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.90
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.29
Washington Nationals vs. San Francisco Giants
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 4:05 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 89 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
