The Washington Nationals have put themselves in a salvage game situation as they wrap up this afternoon in Kansas City. Days like this show the importance of why you go for it aggressively as we did not see on Monday — because you don’t know what will happen in the rest of the series. Yes, you can’t play most regular season games like they are a postseason elimination games however the issue is manager Miguel Cairo shoved his starting pitcher with a 4-2 lead and with a rested bullpen went to his worst reliever after that.
The good vibes from wins on Saturday and Sunday in San Francisco were quickly erased in Kansas City. That is the ups and downs of baseball. Unfortunately for the Nats, it has been a season of 47 ups and 72 downs.
After this game, the Nats will fly back to Washington, D.C. for a homestand that will begin tomorrow with a 4-game series against the Phillies. After last night’s game for Rochester, their manager, Matt LeCroy said that Dylan Crews will be playing a full-game today in the outfield. What LeCroy said he didn’t know was the plan past today for Crews. Will he stay with Rochester or come back to the Nationals?
The Nationals will rely on Jake Irvin as their starter today and hope he follows what MacKenzie Gore did with a bounceback ace performance. That is what the Nats need as the Royals will send Seth Lugo to the mound in this finale.
“[Mitchell Parker] gave up only two hits. He just made one mistake, a fastball to the first baseman, that went out of the ballpark, but besides that, he just threw a lot of pitches. But kept us in the game.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.2, CJ Abrams at +2.8, MacKenzie Gore at +2.7. Add those up, and you get a total of +8.7 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier.
On defense, the OAA stats showed some improvement with a good defensive game yesterday. Jacob Young leads the team at +11, and CJ Abrams is on the opposite end at -9. That is actually quite the improvement over last year’s -18 for Abrams who is on pace to finish at -12.
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.
“When [James Wood] is doing good, that’s where he hits the ball to the [opposite field]. That was a bullet. That was a rocket. It’s nice to see that he’s coming back to himself.”
— Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.97 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.89 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 3.86
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.55
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.28 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.90
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.09
Washington Nationals vs. Kansas City Royals
Stadium: Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri
1st Pitch: 2:10 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 176 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
